


Love is not a Victory March

by tigerlily_sunshine



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Fear, Happy Ending, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Domestic Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Pizza Delivery Boy Luke, Prostitution, Protective Ashton, Protective Michael, Seriously there is a happy ending, University Student Ashton, University Student Calum, University Student Luke, University Student Michael
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:21:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6628933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlily_sunshine/pseuds/tigerlily_sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You were quite friendly with the pizza delivery guy this evening,” said Michael.</p><p>“It’s a rule I have—be nice to those in the food service industry. Wouldn’t want Luke to spit on my pizza the next time,” responded Calum.</p><p>Michael sighed, swinging his feet back and forth.</p><p>“I’m not stupid, you know.”</p><p>(In which Calum falls in love with Luke, and things should be simple, but they aren't.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Knack of Fear

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. Specifically, the lyrics are, "Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."

“You know what? Maybe you should just get over yourself,” snapped Michael across the cafeteria table at Calum.

Calum snorted, rolling his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and glared. He felt more annoyed than angry. Truthfully, this was an old dance between them. Michael sat forward, leaning against the table on his elbows. The black ring through his right eyebrow glinted underneath the sunlight streaming in through the window next to which they all sat. His recently-dyed blue hair seemed even brighter underneath the direct light.

“Are you seriously insinuating that I would rather drive myself? After everything that happened last time?”

Calum winced, his glare, as well as his annoyance, dissipating. His eyes flashed to their other friend, Ashton, who sighed. Ashton’s curls fell over the gauze bandage that was taped across a large gash on his left temple. The wound had initially needed stitches, but they had been removed days beforehand. Now, the bandage merely served to aid the healing ointment spread across it.

“Would you two drop it?” asked Ashton, softly. “Stop blaming yourself, Michael. It wasn’t your fault.”

Michael bit his bottom lip, poised to argue. He had never been one to back down from a fight, especially one as self-depreciating as this one. Ashton glanced between his friends. Calum and Michael had spent the better part of the last couple of weeks rehashing this argument, and Ashton was tired of it. He knew they loved him—that was the reason they could not let go of this fight—but he wanted to put the accident and Michael’s misplaced self-hatred long behind them. The other two did not seem as keen on the idea, both refusing to look Ashton in the eyes. Exhausted of this fight, Ashton stood up from the table with his plate and walked away without taking a glance back. Michael narrowed his eyes at Calum.

“What happened to keeping your mouth shut?”

“Look, I was just merely pointing out that you can’t be scared every time you get behind the wheel,” Calum said. He paused as he ran a hand through his black hair. He still was not used to the shorter undercut. He searched Michael’s face with his eyes, and he felt like a bit of an ass, which was not altogether that unusual. He sighed then proceeded in a gentler tone. “It’s been two weeks. Both you and Ashton came out alive; that is all that really matters. I just don’t think you should be afraid of driving—you never used to be scared of anything.”

Michael smiled sadly at him but offered no response. Though the cafeteria around them was filled with chatter, silence hung heavily over the pair seated in the corner. Calum pushed his plate of food away from him. He was not very hungry anymore. He considered leaving like Ashton had, but he did not want to leave Michael to finish his lunch by himself. Calum had already been enough of a jerk to Michael, which was undeserved. Michael was his very best friend.

“I’ve got a pass for the bus,” Michael offered a little while later, near the time they had to leave for their next classes. He was hunched over his food, brooding, but he looked up at Calum through his eyelashes. He placed his fork across his plate, making no further attempt to finish the mush of vegetables that was left.

A spike of guilt ran straight through Calum’s heart. He shook his head. “Nah, I’ve gotta stop by the library after class. I can type up my paper until you get out. I was a bit of an ass earlier.”

Michael smiled graciously, clearly relieved that his half-hearted suggestion to take the fifty-minute public transit ride to their apartment was rejected. He reached across the table and grabbed Calum’s plate, stacking it on top of his own. Some of the vegetable mush spilled over the edge. Michael wiped it up with a napkin that he threw on top of the stacked plates. He bade Calum bye, carrying the dishes to the kitchen. Calum grabbed his books from the table.

The late summer air was stifling hot. Calum was nearly a sweaty mess five steps outside of the air-conditioned cafeteria. He wished he would have thought to grab a snapback before he left this morning like Michael had, but he had not. He decided to keep to the shadowed sidewalk path instead of cutting across the quad like he typically would. It only took Calum a couple of minutes longer to reach the building in which his next class was held. He was in no rush for time. He was a little early, as it was only a quarter past the hour. Class would not start for another fifteen minutes. The room, though, was usually empty by now.

Feeling too lazy to use the front entrance, he pulled open the side door and entered the narrow stairwell. He began to climb the steps. When he reached the third floor landing, the door into the hallway flew open. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the railing. His heart beat frantically in his chest. He feared it might leap completely through his ribs. His legs were shaky. He refused to look down to see just how far he could have fallen.

A hand reached out to steady him. On instinct, he let go of the rail to grab the person who held him. He probably had the stranger in a death grip, but he did not care much for his manners at the moment. He still had not recovered from his near-death experience. A few seconds later, he forced himself to take a deep breath to calm his nerves then looked up at the one who was his savior. Blue eyes stared back at him, wide and startled and apologetic.

“Sorry! My fault!”

“No, man,” responded Calum, words falling unhindered from his lips. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

The stranger laughed uneasily, like it was a nervous tick, and said, “They really need to widen the landing or something.”

The stranger’s blond hair shined in the dimly lit stairwell. He had a nervous, though friendly, smile upon his face. It made Calum’s heart beat fast for a completely different reason than the near-death experience. His grip on the stranger was still crushingly tight, and the stranger himself still had not let go of Calum. Strangers were not usually this intimate.

Calum hastily dropped the stranger’s arm. He felt a blush chase across his brown cheeks, thankful that it would not be as evident on him as it might be on Michael’s pale skin. He shifted from the stranger, eager to get away before he could humiliate himself any farther.

“Thanks for, uh, catching me,” he said.

He chanced the stranger a smile as he stepped around him and began to climb the next flight of stairs. His heart pounded in his ears. He tried not to think about why he was bumbling around or, worse, about how safe he had felt after a split second of stomach-turning fear.

At the half landing, he glanced down the stairwell, unable to resist a quick glance back. The stranger stared up at him, still glued to the spot where Calum had left him. A dark blush colored his cheeks as he met Calum’s eyes. Calum’s heart flip-flopped in his chest.

“I’m Calum, by the way.”

“Luke.”

Grinning one last time at Luke, Calum continued to ascend the stairs. He entered the hallway on the fourth floor and walked into the nearest classroom. Some of the students were already seated, scattered around the desks. He took his own spot near the window and readied himself to stay awake for the monotone voice of the professor, which made him sleepy no matter how well-rested he felt upon entering. It was a solid five minutes before his heart stopped pounding in his ears.

After his business management class and subsequent economics lecture, he settled into the back corner of the library with his laptop. He knew better than to attempt to write his paper at the apartment. He barely ever got any homework done there, especially whenever everybody else was home. If he wanted to pass his cultural writing elective class, he needed to finish his paper.

He listened to music as he worked. An upbeat tempo strummed in his ears through the tiny headphones. Time slipped away as he worked and tapped his foot to the beat. He nearly yelped in surprise when a slim finger poked him in the side. He jerked his headphones from his ears, glaring up at the perpetrator. It was only Michael, snapback turned backward on top of his head and a backpack slung across one shoulder and an impish grin on his lips. Calum rolled his eyes.

“Ready?” asked Michael, rocking onto his toes then falling back to his heels.

Calum nodded, pressing a few keys on his laptop to save his nearly completed essay. He packed up his belongings then followed Michael through the library. Outside on the sidewalk, the pair headed for the parking lot behind the nearby football stadium. The sun was slowly sinking lower in the sky as the last hour of day classes commenced. Only a few students lingered around campus, and the parking lot was nearly empty.

Calum shoved his laptop bag into the backseat of his car and then climbed behind the wheel. Michael rolled down his window as he pulled the car onto the street. Their two-bedroom apartment was close to campus, near the end of the university-provided bus route.

Ashton was already at the apartment when Calum and Michael returned. He was standing on the tips of his toes to reach above the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet where Michael and Calum kept their disposable plates. His classes had ended just before lunch, but he worked at the music store down the street for a few hours in the afternoons. Following the car accident, he had been forced to cut back his hours.

“The season premiere’s tonight,” he announced, setting a small stack of paper plates on the counter. “We thought about ordering pizza.”

“We?” repeated Calum.

He dropped his laptop bag in a chair beside the kitchen table as he peered around the separating wall into the living room. Just as he expected, Ashton’s roommate, Liam, was seated upon the couch, his socked feet propped up on the coffee table. He grinned a greeting at Calum.

“It was a unanimous decision between the two of us,” said Liam.

“Of course, it was,” muttered Calum without any heat.

“Besides,” continued Liam, purposefully choosing to pretend like he had not heard Calum’s retort, “your television is much nicer.”

“You threw a Wii remote at the corner of yours,” said Calum, “so it’s really your own fault that you can only see, like, ninety-five percent of your screen.”

Liam shrugged, still grinning. He was wearing a cut-off t-shirt, and his hair was still partially wet. He must have showered just before he came over here, which meant that he had stopped by the gym on the way back from his classes. Liam was always on the lazy side of tired after he worked out.

“It is lovely to see you here, by the way, Cal,” said Liam.

Calum snorted.

“I live here. Now, scoot over so I can sit down, too.”

Liam obliged, making enough room for Calum in the middle seat of the couch. Everybody knew Michael would fuss if he got stuck with that spot, so Calum normally made it a habit to claim it for himself. It had the best view of the television anyway.

“The delivery should get here any time now,” said Ashton as he and Michael joined them in the living room. Ashton put the plates down on the table then sat in the arm chair next to the doorway to the kitchen. “We went ahead and ordered.”

“Explain to me how you got in here, anyway,” said Calum. He shifted nearer to Liam whenever Michael sat down next to him and took up more than his fair share of the couch. “You left your key here the other night.”

“And you never returned it,” said Ashton with a mock-pout. “Some friend you are.”

“It’s my key!” laughed Calum.

“Which you graciously made a copy of for me to use in emergencies.”

“This is an emergency?” asked Calum.

Ashton blinked, his expression sobering. He nodded his head once. Next to Calum, Liam elbowed him sharply in the rib. Calum grunted, wincing at the pain. He whipped his head around to glare at Liam, but Liam’s attention was trained on the television screen where a cat commercial was playing.

“It’s the season premiere, Calum,” said Liam. “Get your head out of your ass.”

Michael barked out a loud laugh, and Ashton succumbed to one, too. Calum felt himself grinning. He loved his friends. He loved their banter. If he was being completely, one hundred percent honest, he loved that they all wound down their days right here in this apartment together.

A knock at the door interrupted whatever response Calum might have had—not that he actually did have one—and Calum jumped up immediately. He climbed over Michael, who refused to move his legs from their propped-up position on the coffee table. Calum did not mind. It was not the first time he had to maneuver himself around Michael.

Ashton handed Calum a wad of cash as he passed by through to the kitchen. Calum thought about cracking a half-formed joke about how Ashton should slip that amount of money underneath the band of Calum’s boxers instead. He could not come up with a punch line quick enough, so he surrendered to his defeat and headed to the door without a word.

“The total is twenty-six, thirty-five.”

Calum froze, his fingers cradling the money. He stared at Luke, who looked equally surprised to see him. The collar of Luke’s red polo shirt was flipped up in the back. A shimmer of sweat clung to the line of his blond hair. He shifted the pizza boxes in his hand and found his voice.

“So I noticed there was an elevator in this building. Probably a good thing—unless you have trouble with those as well.”

Calum cocked his head to the side, lowering his eyebrows in confusion. Luke laughed nervously. He scratched the back of his neck with his free and looked as if he wished he had never spoken. His cheeks burned as brightly as the color of his shirt.

“Uh—you know, because I clobbered you with the door in the stairwell earlier,” he explained.

Finally understanding, Calum bit out a laugh. A blush burned in his cheeks as well. He took the pizza boxes from Luke so that he had something to do with his hands. When he gave Luke the money, he waved off the change. There was a generous amount left over, but Calum thought it was a good price to pay to happen upon Luke again.

“Nah, elevators aren’t as dangerous,” he said. “Keep the rest as a tip.”

Luke nodded his head slowly in hesitation. He shoved the extra money into his pocket along with the total and smiled gratefully. Behind Calum, Liam hollered that the season premiere was commencing. Calum briefly glanced over his shoulder toward the sound of Liam’s voice. A wild urge overcame him, and he spoke before his thoughts could catch up to his mouth.

“I’d ask you to come in and join us, but I assume you’ve got more pizzas to deliver?”

“My boss owns my soul for another hour at least,” Luke agreed, grimacing. “Enjoy your pizza.”

He stepped back from the doorway. Calum watched as Luke walked down the hallway to the elevator. After a couple of seconds, Michael impatiently yelled his name, demanding the food. Calum shook himself, realizing how creepy he might have seemed with his head stuck out the apartment door. He retreated back inside, carrying the pizzas into the living room.

“‘Bout time,” said Michael.

He grabbed one of the pizza boxes from Calum’s hand. Opening it, he grimaced and passed it to Liam. He reached for the other box. Calum easily handed it over to him, as Calum’s thoughts were still on how good Luke had looked in the black trousers of his work uniform.

Shaking himself out of his inappropriate thoughts, Calum reclaimed his seat between Michael and Liam. He took the pizza box from Liam when it was offered back to him. The opening scenes of the season premiere streamed across the television. Calum settled in to enjoy every minute of the next hour.

Later that evening, after Ashton and Liam left for their apartment next door, Calum placed his tooth brush back into the medicine cabinet. He looked at himself in the mirror, jumping in fright when he noticed Michael sitting on the dryer. Michael gazed at him patiently. Calum clutched his chest as he turned to face Michael, willing his heart to stop beating as frantically. He was about to admonish Michael for being so sinister, but Michael spoke up first.

“You were quite friendly with the pizza delivery guy this evening.”

“It’s a rule I have—be nice to those in the food service industry. Wouldn’t want him to spit on my pizza the next time.”

Michael sighed, swinging his feet back and forth.

“I’m not stupid, you know.”

Calum did know that. Michael was one of the smartest people Calum knew. Calum had never really been able to lie to Michael, not even when it mattered. That was one of the reasons Calum loved Michael so much. Michael saw what he did, and he stuck around, and he made sure that Calum was safe. 

But Michael did not need to chase this as he had chased everything else in Calum’s life, so Calum shot him a smile in lieu of a response. Stepping away from the sink, Calum offered Michael his hand and helped Michael down from the dryer. Michael was not happy that Calum refused to say anything else. He expressed his dissatisfaction by slapping at the light switch to turn it off as the pair of them left the bathroom. They lingered in the space between the doors to their respective bedrooms.

“I don’t give you or Ashton hell for that stupid love struck dance the two of you put on, so don’t start with me,” warned Calum, because there were a million things he could say to both Michael and Ashton about the heart-eyes they get whenever they are around each other.

Michael folded his arms across his chest. His expression was icy in the way it always was whenever somebody mentioned the indescribable nature of his relationship with Ashton. His eyes burned bright with fire. Calum took a step back at the intensity of Michael’s glare.

“You’re an ass.”

Calum bit back the urge to agree with Michael and stomp off like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum. Michael was right, though. Calum was being unfair to his best friend, who was the first person to whom Calum always told things. Luke should not be any different than anything else Calum had ever told Michael, so Calum caved.

“His name is Luke, and I ran into the door he was opening in the stairwell of the business building this afternoon.”

“See? Was that so hard?” asked Michael, a teasing lilt to his voice. “But, you know, he was quite friendly with you, too. You should, uh, invite him over the next time you see him. We’ll catch a movie or something.”

Calum almost laughed at how easy for new friendships Michael was, except Calum suspected Michael wanted an opportunity to get to know Luke himself. Michael’s standards for the people Calum hangs out with were historically safer than Calum’s own. Calum could not bring himself to blame Michael for being protective, but Calum was still hesitant to take Michael up on his suggestion.

“It’s crowded enough around here already, isn’t it?” he responded. He leaned against the doorframe to his own bedroom. He put on his best brave face, but he could feel his heart accelerate. “Besides, I just know his name, not everything about him.”

“I’m not asking you to propose marriage,” said Michael. “I’m just offering you an opportunity to get to know him. C’mon, Calum. This is the first guy you’ve showed any interest in since Zayn. It’s about time you got back out there, and even if this Luke isn’t interested in you, well, so what? You tried. If he’s a pretty decent guy, the worst you can get out of the deal is a new friend.”

This was not an argument Calum was going to win. He knew this, and he tried not to think about why Michael was so passionate about his interests in other people. That was not a train of thought he wanted to pursue this close to bedtime. He had an early shift at the store in the morning.

“I’ll think about it, alright?” he responded.

It was the best he could give Michael. He wished Michael a good night and pushed open the door to his room, leaving Michael standing in the tiny hallway. He threw himself on the twin-sized bed pushed up against the wall. It was the biggest bed that would fit in his tiny room. Their budget as broke university students was not plentiful. Michael’s bed next door was hardly any bigger.

When Calum woke up the next morning, he sauntered into the kitchen. Michael had not emerged from his room yet, but he probably would soon since he needed to make it to campus for his first class. Calum turned on the coffee pot, so the coffee would perk as he showered.

He was tired and wanted nothing except to return to bed. He headed for the bathroom instead, as he needed to get ready for the day. He had to work before class. The manager had hired a new associate at the sporting goods store who was supposed to start that day. He doubted it would look good on the company if one of the assistant managers was late. His boss would not be happy with his tardiness, either, no matter how friendly they were with one another outside of the workplace.

Calum took a quick shower then returned to the kitchen to pour some coffee into a thermos. When he peeked into the cabinet above the coffee pot, he saw nothing but cups and glasses. Michael was awake by now, sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal. He stirred the soggy flakes around in the milk, glancing up as Calum stared at the empty space where the thermoses should have been.

“It’s in the drainer,” Michael said, helpfully. “I did the dishes last night, but I haven’t put them away yet.”

Calum thanked him. Grabbing the coffee pot, Calum carried it over to the drainer where he filled his thermos. There was still some coffee left so he offered it to Michael, who shook his head. After returning the pot to the base, Calum added sugar to his coffee. He was not craving the overwhelming bitterness of drinking it black.

The digital clock on the stove changed to a new hour. Calum grabbed his keys from the bowl beside the door, and glanced over his shoulder at Michael, saying, “I won’t be back ‘til late tonight. Are you sure you’re all right with Ashton driving you?”

“I’m fine as long as I’m not the one behind the wheel,” said Michael, waving him out.

Calum shut the door behind him and walked down the hallway to the elevator. Traffic was hectic, as it usually was at that time of a morning. He cursed his hours as he was stopped by another red light. When he had the evening shift, his commute time was cut in half. He finally pulled into the parking lot of the sporting goods store, his coffee mostly drank. He dashed to the entrance and clocked in with only a couple of minutes to spare.

Josh, his boss, was waiting in the storage room for him, a wry smile twisting upon his face. His dark eyes gleamed with amusement, which brought an unidentifiable rush of dread in the pit of Calum’s stomach. Calum felt a flash of confusion that lessened as Josh stepped back to reveal a stranger whom he had never met. The stranger’s hair was curly and brown and hung down to his shoulders. He stood nervously next to Josh, fidgeting with the black polo shirt that seemed to swamp him.

“This is Harry. He’s our newest associate.”

Harry thrust his hand eagerly toward Calum, who glanced warily at Josh instead. Stunned by the enthusiasm, he hesitantly shook Harry’s hand. Familiarity nagged at the back of his mind. He remembered Harry from somewhere, but he could place the man’s fair face or even his piercing green eyes. Calum expectantly turned to his boss. 

Josh bit his lips together, fighting back an amused grin, and said, “I’m going to walk him through the protocol, unless you’d rather…”

“Nah,” answered Calum, immediately, almost as eagerly as Harry had shaken his hand. He refused to look at the new guy, mind still frantically searching for why Harry seemed so familiar. “I need to finish the hunting section.”

Calum rushed away without waiting for either to respond, conscious of the silent amused laughter that wracked Josh’s body. Some days Calum liked his boss less than others. He grabbed the cart full of hunting gear and pushed it toward the corresponding section. His favorite job had never been to organize the hunting vests, but it was the only task which would keep him as far away as possible from Josh’s smug grin and the new guy’s strange enthusiasm.

The first couple of hours at work passed uneventfully. Calum moved on from the hunting vests to stock the shelves of the camping aisle. He lugged a cart of sleeping bags from the storage in the back of the store to the aisle then set about placing the bags upon the shelf. It was a mindless task for all of the years he had been working there.

“So Josh is working you hard,” greeted Ashley.

Calum pushed the sleeping bag farther back on the shelf then turned around. Ashley sat perched on a table displaying college football paraphernalia. She did not seemed concerned at all about whether the rickety table might collapse under her additional weight. She pushed the bangs of her dyed turquoise hair out of her eyes as she glanced across the store.

“You do realize that Josh is getting immense enjoyment out of your reaction to the newbie, right?”

Calum grumbled, grabbing a red sleeping bag from the cart instead of responding. He shoved it onto the shelf and held it with one hand as he adjusted the metal holder. Ashley chuckled loudly as his reaction. The table beneath her shook with her laughter.

“Of course, he is,” said Calum. He paused his work to meet Ashley’s eyes. “Is there something you want from me?”

Ashley smiled, gleeful then and said, “So Michael tells me you’ve got your eye on a man. A cute pizza delivery guy, was he?”

Calum dropped the final sleeping bag onto the shelf and crossed his arms at her, attempting to appear bored with the topic. He hated it when Michael and Ashley gossiped, and, apparently, the two of them did not have anything better to do in their shared morning class than sit in the back row and talk like clucking hens. It was never good for Calum when they did that. As a result, Ashley knew better than to believe that Calum was so nonchalant about the pizza delivery guy. She raised her eyebrows in a silent prodding gesture. Just like last night when faced with Michael, Calum yielded.

“His name is Luke, though I’m sure Michael informed you of that as well.” When Ashley neither confirmed nor denied his statement, he continued. “It’s honestly nothing. We just ran into each other, that’s all.”

“Oh, honey,” said Ashley, patronizingly. “Michael was right. You tell yourself excellent lies. I mean, are you even aware of that smile tugging at your lips when you say his name?”

Though Calum adored Ashley like the good friend she was, he did not want to discuss his love life with her. She, like Michael and the others, knew the Zayn incident. Calum did not care for repeating that era of his life so he scanned the barcode with the portable store gun. He grabbed the cart, throwing over his shoulder, “Just go find Josh, and leave me alone, would you?”


	2. The Broken Invitation

The passing days slowly bled together. There was no mention of Luke following Calum’s conversation with Ashley at the sporting goods store. He had not questioned why the subject had so suddenly dropped, but he was glad that it did. That was about the extent of his good luck, it seemed. His working hours at the store seemed to double without actually increasing in amount after Harry was hired, as Calum spent the majority of his time on the clock explaining the same tasks over and over again. He doubted the new guy would last very long on the team, but Josh was known for having a larger capacity for patience than Calum.

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Calum huddled underneath an umbrella with Ashton as they walked across campus to their class. The relentless rain fell so hard that the umbrella did little to keep them dry. Calum was not sure why Ashton even insisted on holding it above their heads. He pulled the hood of his jacket farther down his forehead as water splashed his face.

“I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning,” he moaned. “I would’ve stayed nice and dry.”

His sneakers were already soaking wet and had virtually been so since the moment he first stepped outside in the torrential rainstorm. He cursed underneath his breath when he misjudged the depth of a puddle on the sidewalk, even though the cool water that splattered up his pant leg was a familiar sensation by now. As they climbed a set of stairs next to the science complex, Calum banged his head on the underside of the umbrella. He winced, muttering another curse to himself.

It was officially still summer, but autumn loomed near. The air conditioner blew at full-blast when they entered the building in which their class was held. Calum shivered in his wet clothes while Ashton folded up the umbrella. A wet floor sign was posted a few feet down the corridor, a common staple on rainy days. Their sneakers squeaked across the tiles as they hurried to the elevator to ride it up to the third floor. It would have been a catastrophic mistake to chance the stairwells on a day such as this, as the stairs were no doubt covered in at least an inch of rainwater from the exterior doors.

Once upstairs, Calum followed Ashton to the computer lab for their class. It was the only course that Calum shared with Ashton. He shared none with Michael, who was mainly taking music classes this semester. That was fine with Calum, though. He saw more than enough of Michael at their shared apartment.

It seemed that Calum was not the only one thinking of Michael, because as soon as Calum and Ashton were seated, Ashton asked, “Have you spoken to Michael this morning?”

Ashton’s gaze was firmly locked on the monitor in front of him as he logged into the system, but Calum shook his head anyway. He knew that Ashton could see his response in his peripheral vision. Besides, the tone of Ashton’s voice suggested that the question itself was rhetorical. Ashton knew Calum and Michael’s schedule well enough to know that, outside of text messaging, which Michael loathed to do, neither one saw each other until late in the evenings on Tuesdays. 

Ashton made a noise in the back of his throat that made Calum look away from his own computer. Ashton’s face was paler than usual. He refused to meet Calum’s eyes, his own gaze still resting on the desktop display on the screen. He opened his mouth only to immediately shut it. The pit of Calum’s stomach sank. After a moment, he took a deep breath and dared to glance over at Calum. He looked like he wished he were going to say anything else, and Calum had to give him credit for sticking to his guns.

“Zayn’s back in town.”

Calum’s elbow slipped off the table, his hand scraping across the sharp edge. He ignored the pain that flared in his skin. A sense of dread built up in his chest, balling up into a lump that rested at the top of his throat. He tried to swallow around it, but he felt nauseated. It felt like something monstrous was clawing at his heart. He blew out a slow breath and ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“Well, it’s not like I’m absolutely going to see him, you know? It’s a big city, a big campus. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

It was the bravest he could be, even though it was not enough. He turned abruptly away as Ashton’s face filled with doubt. Calum’s words were lies. Zayn was the type of nightmare that Calum could not easily avoid. Ashton knew as much. He looked like he wanted to contradict Calum, but, in the end, he did not. He merely nodded his head, a gesture of acquiescence that did not quite meet his eyes.

Ashton turned back to his computer and said no more about Zayn. He did not need to. Calum’s own mind whirled around enough with the topic. The class wore on, but Calum hardly heard the professor’s lecture. He was too caught up in thoughts of Zayn, in wondering what his reappearance might mean, and in trying not to break down in the middle of campus. Ashton kept sending worried glances at him throughout the class, but Calum barely noticed, so consumed as he was in the news of Zayn’s return.

When the class finally ended, Ashton shepherded Calum out of the room and then out of the entire building. Calum allowed himself to be manhandled, Ashton’s arm around his shoulders. Outside, the weather seemed to be akin to early April rather than September. It was still pouring the rain, so Ashton raised the umbrella over their heads.

Ashton was finished for the day, but Calum still had another lecture that was set to begin in about fifteen minutes. He was in no shape to attend it, though. Ashton did not even volley the idea to Calum as he led Calum toward the parking lot. They walked in silence, the rain pattering the top of the umbrella like the drum solo of Calum’s favorite rock song.

Once they reached the parking lot, Ashton ushered Calum into the passenger’s seat of his car, not even bothering to convince Calum to take his own vehicle back to the apartment. Ashton drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other folded over Calum’s as a silent reminder that Calum was not alone. It had been a while since Ashton had last needed to reassure Calum of such a thing.

They were both silent during the drive back to their apartments. Calum stared out the window at the passing scenery, but he did not take much of it in. It was hard to concentrate on anything other than the unkind thoughts running rampant through his mind. He tightly clung to Ashton, his fingernails digging indentations into the back of Ashton’s hand nearly deep enough to draw blood. Somewhere in the back of Calum’s mind, he acknowledged that he should loosen his grip or, at the very least, apologize to Ashton, but he could not bring himself to open his mouth to speak. His voice would crack and break in the worst possible ways, and Ashton would give him that awful pitying look, and Calum did not want that—not again after Calum had managed to go so long without receiving it. 

When Ashton finally parked the car in front of their apartment building, he cut the engine almost immediately. Calum made no move to exit the vehicle, so consumed was he by his own thoughts. Ashton was not particularly surprised. Calum had barely spoken a single word since Ashton had informed him about Zayn, and Ashton knew from experience that Calum needed time to himself to work through what Zayn’s reappearance meant for him.

Ashton guided Calum into the building with one hand on Calum’s arm and the other resting in the small of Calum’s back. When they arrived at Calum’s apartment, Ashton tried the door knob and found that it was unlocked. Michael must already be home.

Indeed, Michael was. Ashton ushered Calum into the apartment first then shut the door behind both of them. Michael was seated at the table with a stack of bills that needed to be paid within the next few days. He glanced up at them when they entered, a blue ink pen tucked behind his left ear. His greeting died on his lips as Calum shrugged away from Ashton and walked zombie-like past Michael without any acknowledgment. Michael raised his eyebrows at Ashton in a clear unspoken question of _you told him?!_

Calum hardly paid any attention to Michael or to Ashton, so he did not catch Ashton’s response. Instead, he headed straight for his bedroom. Once inside, he peeled off his wet clothes and climbed into his tiny bed wearing nothing except his briefs. They, too, were damp from the incessant rain.

“I think I broke him,” concluded Ashton quietly. His voice, though, carried through the apartment as he and Michael made their way toward Calum’s room. Ashton sighed, glancing regretfully over at Michael. “It probably wasn’t the best way to tell him, but you said you saw Zayn in the library. I didn’t want Calum to be caught off-guard if… you know.”

They stopped in the doorway to Calum’s room where, inside, Calum stared vacantly up at the ceiling above his head. He could feel Michael and Ashton’s concerned, heavy gazes on him. Hundreds of horrible memories played on repeat in his mind. It was like it was eight months ago again, and he was experiencing the first few fear-filled days of freedom.

“He needed to be told. Better one of us tells him than he run into that bastard,” said Michael, gently, agreeing with Ashton. He made no attempt to whisper, because the faraway glint in Calum’s empty eyes suggested Calum was not even listening to them anyway. Michael glanced thoughtfully at the empty space on the bed. “There’s only one way I know how to help.”

Wordlessly, Michael and Ashton crossed the room to the bed where they climbed next to Calum. It was a tight fit with the three of them—the small bed was not meant to hold three fully-grown men—but they were well-practiced at piling into such a condensed space. The one in Michael and Ashton’s dorm room last year had not been any bigger. They had managed it just fine.

Calum did not bother to move to accommodate them until Michael shoved him over so that Michael could squeeze between him and the wall. Michael laid his head on Calum’s chest so that he could listen to Calum’s heartbeat. Calum wrapped his arm around Michael’s neck, the only part of Michael that he could reach in their position. Truthfully, Calum needed the physical contact as a reminder that he was not alone as much as Michael needed to hear Calum’s heartbeat as a reminder that Calum was still alive.

On the other side of him, Ashton tangled his fingers through Calum’s hair as he tried not to fall off the bed. He did not complain about the lack of room, though, as it was a small price to pay for Calum to feel safe again. Guilt tugged at the edges of Ashton’s heart. He wished that he would not have had to be the one to tell Calum about Zayn, but Michael was right. Calum deserved to hear the news from somebody safe like Ashton instead of from the monster himself.

Ashton held Calum close, and, together, the three of them were silent for a long while, though there were many things that could have—and probably should have—been said between them. Calum, for his part, lay passively in the holds of his best friends. The shadows of his mind morphed a troubled expression onto his face that he made no attempt to hide. He felt small, like he used to all of the time back when Zayn was a real part of his life.

He hated himself in a way that he had not in a very long time until he could not bear it any longer.

“He has no power over me,” Calum said, loudly and firmly like his old therapist had taught him to do when he felt like his world was crumbling all over again. He did not quite believe his words right now, but he remembered how he had believed them without a doubt this morning. This little bitty thing had to be enough until he felt brave enough to believe them again.

“You’re stronger than he is,” agreed Ashton.

Michael repeated the sentiment in the next second. They both smiled proudly at Calum, even though they both sensed he was only pretending to be brave. Calum was already doing better than he had last time, and that had to count for something. Ashton pressed a soft kiss to Calum’s forehead.

“Remember that, okay?”

Calum nodded, feeling a little less like his world was ending. The three of them fell into companionable silence once more, but the tension in the room lessened by the passing minute. The afternoon grew later until evening fell over the city. It was only when Calum’s room reflected the darkness that Calum finally had enough of wallowing in self-hatred and doubt.

He sat up, knocking a dozing Michael off him. Michael yelped in surprise as he abruptly woke up from the light sleep into which he had fallen. He glared unhappily at Calum, though there was hardly any light in the room by which any of them could see such a thing. Calum sensed Michael’s response—or perhaps anticipated it—and chuckled softly. Only a little bit of darkness crept into the contours of his laughter. As small as he had felt earlier, it was nothing compared to how whole Michael and Ashton’s support made him.

“I’ll make dinner,” he offered. “Fried chicken fine?”

Michael hummed his agreement, glad that Calum was trying for normalcy. Calum placed a sloppy kiss on Michael’s cheek, the wet kind that Michael absolutely loathed. He scrambled over Ashton then off the bed before Michael could retaliate. Michael grumbled after him, but there was no real heat in Michael’s complaint.

Calum laughed again. His chest felt lighter than it had all evening. He grabbed at-shirt out of his dresser drawer and pulled it on before he walked out into the kitchen. It was a small thing, Calum offering to fix supper, but it felt like the first step in the right direction all over again. He smiled to himself as he set about frying chicken and boiling some potatoes to mash.

Michael and Ashton joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later where they sat down at the table so that Michael could resume working on the bills. Ashton was still wiping the sleep out of his eyes, as Michael had not been the only one to fall into an impromptu nap. Calum had not minded his friends dozing on him, since the physical reminders that they were there with him while he freaked out over Zayn had been enough to quell the worst of the bad thoughts that were running rampant through his mind.

It did not take too long for Calum to finish cooking the simple dinner. They ate it in the living room, because Michael’s mess of the bills was spread out across the table, and nobody wanted to straighten it up, especially not Michael who would have to drag it all back out to finish the last of it. Ashton flipped the television to an old crime-drama of which Calum had always been fond, and nobody mentioned Zayn again. The forced smile on Calum’s tired face as he bade his friends goodnight was evidence enough of what had occurred.

Calum climbed into bed with the fear that he would lie awake for hours, but he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Coming back into the land of the awake the next morning, Calum was happy to see the sunlight stream in through his window. The morning news blared from the television in the living room, made all that louder because Calum had neglected to shut his door the previous night. He laid in bed for a moment feeling confused. Michael never bothered with the news channel. If a big story did not appear on Michael’s Internet homepage, he did not bother knowing about it.

Calum forced himself up and out of bed as his curiosity got the best of him. He pulled on a t-shirt but did not bother with pants as he trailed out into the kitchen where Ashton, Liam, and Michael were crowded around the breakfast table. Ashton was seated in the spot that had the best view of the television. The remote lay abandoned on the table next to him, and Calum’s confusion disappeared. Ashton was an old soul, preferring to keep tabs on world events as if he had been born an entire generation too late. 

“Morning, beautiful,” greeted Liam through a mouthful of soggy cereal.

Calum threw up a hand as a wave toward Liam, who was the only one that bothered to acknowledge him. It was not all that surprising. Michael was half-asleep in his seat, staring down at the last few morsels of cereal as if he were contemplating returning to bed. Michael had never been a morning person. Calum ruffled a hand through Michael’s hair as he walked past. Michael, still sleepy, barely mumbled out an indignant, _“Hey!”_ after him. Calum just laughed.

Next to Michael, Ashton’s attention was trained on the television. There was a red banner along the bottom of the screen that signified breaking news. Calum did not bother reading the caption. Neither did he bother listening to the report. If it was something intriguing, Ashton would surely tell him all about it later.

Calum made a beeline for the drainer and grabbed a mug that nobody had bothered to put away in the proper cabinet yet. The coffee pot was a little less than half-full. It was still piping hot, so Calum poured himself a cup before he sat down at the table between Liam and Ashton. From his vantage point, he could only see half of the news story playing from the television.

“Don’t you have cereal and the news in your own apartment?” he asked, speaking mainly to Liam since Ashton was otherwise distracted. He grabbed an apple out of the bag in the middle of the table and made a mental note to move the rest to the counter so that it would not seem as if he and Michael were incapable of keeping their apartment at least semi-tidy.

Liam grinned toothily at him as he scooped up a bite of cereal and shoved it in his mouth. He did not bother offering a more appropriate response. It did not really matter anyway. Calum liked Liam. They were good friends and had been since Ashton had wormed his way into Calum’s life about a year ago.

“Michael asked for a lift to class,” said Liam after a couple of moments. He was finished with his cereal by now, so he lifted the bowl to drink the milk. It gave him a milk mustache. He wiped it away with his shirt sleeve. “It doesn’t really make sense for you to make a drive to campus so early when you don’t have class until this afternoon.”

“Thanks,” said Calum. “I’ve got some reading for econ I’ve got to finish.”

“Warned you against taking Shuffet,” said Michael, groggily. The accompanying grin on his face fell short of the snark it would have had if he had been a little more awake. “Took him my first semester, and I swear he made us read, like, the _entire_ book just for shits and giggles.”

“Like you actually read any of it,” retorted Calum.

Michael shrugged, not denying it. He stifled a yawn then went back to staring down at his finished breakfast. Calum shook his head fondly at Michael, and he wondered how he managed living without Michael for the two years they had been separated. He stopped that train of thought almost immediately, because the end destination was Zayn, and Calum was feeling too good this morning to break down again.

“We brought your car back,” said Liam. “I needed to pick up something from Ashley’s last night, so Ashton hitched a ride with me, and I dropped him off on my way there.”

It was the only acknowledge of yesterday’s events that anybody had thus far made this morning, but there was a concealed glint in Liam’s eyes that suggested he knew the intimate details of what had transpired. Ashton must have told Liam the whole story as they drove to campus last night. Or maybe Michael had when he had turned over the keys to Calum’s car.

Calum held his breath, waiting for somebody to ask if he was all right going to campus alone today knowing that he could run into Zayn. Nobody did. Liam stood up and took his bowl to the sink, grabbing Michael’s on his way by. While he was there, he washed both bowls and the silverware then left them all to dry in the drainer. When he was done, he bypassed the table and headed for the couch in the living room instead. Ashton joined him a beat later.

The conversation was closed. Calum let out a sigh of relief, glad that nobody was babying him. He was not completely fooled, though. He knew why Ashton and Liam had decided to enjoy breakfast over here instead of their own apartment next door. They were worried about him.

Truthfully, Calum did not blame them one bit for being so concerned.

Calum finished his meager breakfast a couple of minutes later. He threw the apple core away in the trash and refilled his coffee cup. He went to join Calum and Ashton in the living room, but he made sure to usher Michael away from the table so that Michael could go get ready for class.

Once successful, Calum sat on the couch next to Liam. He had no interest in the morning news, which had transition from the breaking story into weather. Calum watched it long enough to learn that the rain showers from yesterday had passed. Today was supposed to be sunny. With that in mind, Calum reached for his economics book.

He was soon left to his own devices, as Liam, Ashton, and Michael left not long after the dawning of a new hour. It was the ideal time to do his homework, but he had trouble concentrating on his readings. His mind constantly volleyed between the reading assignment and the dangerous territory that was Zayn. He tried to concentrate, but the words began to blur together after a while.

It was a fruitless endeavor. He shut his book, calling it quits on the rest of the assignment. It was almost time for him to leave anyway.

He headed for his room to get ready, dressing in the first set of clothes that matched decently enough. He stopped in front of the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair, thankful that the new cut needed less upkeep than his old one did. He fixed himself a sandwich for lunch using the last of the turkey lunchmeat in the fridge and ate it on his way out of the door.

Noon was steadily approaching. He had only a short amount of time to make it to campus to run a few errands before class, such as stopping by the library to use the printer. Fortunately for him, he was still a little too early for the lunch traffic rush, so he made it to campus pretty quickly. He parked in the lot near the football stadium like usual, though the space were not assigned. It was the same lot that Ashton preferred, too, as his car was parked considerably closer to the steps that led up to the quad.

Calum checked the time on his radio before he got out of his car. He had just enough time to go to the library, so he headed there straight away. He needed to print out his essay first and foremost, because it was due at the beginning of his first class. He could put off all of the other errands to another day if necessary.

Located in the center of campus, the library was busy. A soft buzz of chatter permeated the stifling silence. The rows of computers were nearly filled with students, but Calum found an empty space at the far end. The computer itself was a slower model, easily ten years out of date, so it took a few minutes for him to log onto the system. He looked over his essay one last time to ensure that his citations were correct. That was what he always worried over the most. They looked fine to him, so he printed the document.

He packed up his belongings quickly, eager to make it to class. He made sure to log off the computer then went to the side room to retrieve his essay. He collected the stack of papers off the printer, separating his own out and leaving the others on the table next to it. He counted out the pages of his essay to ensure that every one of them had printed. They were all there, so he blindly reached for the stapler.

His hand wrapped around someone’s wrist instead. He jumped, dropping contact with the mysterious person as he looked up. He readied an apology on his lips, his cheeks already burning, but the words died in his throat as he identified the mysterious person.

It was Luke, grinning nervously at him.

“Looks like we had the same idea,” said Luke.

Calum chuckled, warmth filling his chest. He wanted to pretend like he did not know why merely being in Luke’s presence made him feel lighter than air, but he was not that good at lying to himself. There was something about Luke that made Calum want to acknowledge, at least to himself, how attracted he was to Luke. It was a nice feeling, even if it was still scary. After a tumultuous evening yesterday, though, he allowed himself to enjoy the nicety in this moment.

“Yeah, it looks like we did,” agreed Calum.

Luke smiled, handing the stapler to Calum. He made no move to leave the tiny side room. Calum was glad of it, but he could not think of anything that might prompt Luke to smile at him again. For the lack of anything else to do, Calum stapled his own papers together. He placed the stapler back on the table next to him when he was finished. An idea struck him then, and he fumbled over himself to speak. 

“This may be a long shot, but you want to come over tonight? My roommates and I, we’re probably just going to eat take-out food and watching some crappy television, but, uh…”

“I have to work,” said Luke, apologetically, and Calum’s heart sank in his chest for a fraction of a second. “Unless that offer stands for later this evening…?”

Instead of Luke grinning, Calum did. Relief swept through Calum’s chest. He briefly thought about what Michael might say to having company over so late, but Ashton was known to stay the night many times, so Michael probably would not mind. Or, rather, Michael probably did not have much room to complain.

“You remember where I live?”

“Of course. I’ll bring some pizza.”

Those were magic words. Calum bit back a comment that if Luke brought pizza, he would never be allowed to leave. Michael would probably instill himself as Luke’s best friend forever on the spot and never, ever let him go as long as Luke could provide free pizza. Calum thought it was baffling how easily Luke, a mere stranger a week ago, was inching into his life. Maybe it was a testament to how far Calum had really come over the past eight months.

Whatever it was, though, Calum did not have the time to dwell on it now. He caught a glance at the clock on the wall behind Luke’s head. He had about seven minutes to get to class. It would probably take him every bit of that to get to his building. He parted ways with Luke with the promise to see him later and left the library through the side door. He resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder to glimpse Luke once more. That was not an acceptable movement this early into a tentative friendship, or at least Calum did not think it was.


	3. Pizza

Calum had to dash across campus to get to class on time, and he was one of the last ones to walk through the door. After handing his newly-printed essay to the professor, he maneuvered around half of a dozen book bags lying in the floor on his way back to his seat. Economics was his least favorite course, but it was a general education requirement, so Calum had to take it. As he got out his notebook that was filled with more doodles than actual class notes, he considered that maybe Ashton was the smarter than either he or Michael for taking the online class over the summer.

By the end of class, Calum was certain that Ashton was the smartest of the three of them. The cramped room was stifling hot, and none of the windows along the west-facing wall opened enough to allow any sort of breeze inside. Calum was miserable. The professor droned on and on about the assigned reading, and Calum understood no more from the lecture than he had the reading.

Fortunately, the rest of his classes flew by quickly, and he met up with Michael outside of the building that held his last lecture. Michael’s class was held in the next building over, so it had become a routine for the pair of them to leave together, especially since Michael still refused to drive himself.

Michael and Calum exchanged small talk about their days as they walked side-by-side to the parking lot. It was early in the evening, and the sun was only a couple of hours away from sinking below the horizon. It was not raining, though, which was a relief after yesterday’s relentless rain showers.

“I ran into Luke,” said Calum as they descended the stairs that led to the parking lot. “I invited him over after he gets off work. He’s going to bring pizza. I hope that’s fine—I should have cleared it with you first, I suppose.”

“Are you kidding me?” demanded Michael, glancing sideways at Calum as they twisted through the parked cars. It was a dangerous maneuver whenever he stepped beyond the back of the vehicles into the lanes which separated the aisles. Calum grabbed Michael by the shoulder, stopping him from walking out in front of a moving car. Michael smiled his gratitude but barreled forward with his point. “In what universe would I be opposed to you making an effort to spend time with Luke? I’m just glad you finally took my advice for once. It’ll be good for you to get to know Luke.”

Michael stopped next to the passenger’s side door of Calum’s car and waiting for a response. Calum did not have an immediate answer. He circled around to the other side of the vehicle where he fished his keys out of his pocket. Unlocking the door, he climbed inside of the cab without say a word. Michael sighed as he got into the vehicle, too.

Still, Calum had nothing to say. Michael was patient with him. Calum took his time buckling his seat belt and putting the keys into the ignition. No matter how long he stalled, he still owed Michael an answer. It was really the least he could do considering how much Michael had done and was still doing for him.

“Just don’t get your hopes up or anything, all right?” said Calum, finally. His hands trembled around the steering wheel, so he tightened his hold on it in an effort to steady them. He glanced over at Michael, his eyes big with apprehension. Anxiety churned in his stomach. “It was a split second decision, and, honestly, I still don’t know why I asked him. You were right, I guess. It can’t hurt to get to know Luke. He seems nice enough.”

“Yeah, he does,” agreed Michael, and that was that.

Later, when Calum and Michael finally walked through the front door to their apartment, Ashton was already stretched out across the couch watching television. The bandage that had once been taped across his head was gone and a shiny red scar peeked out from underneath his hair. It looked gruesome now, but in the coming months, the scar would fade to white and be virtually unnoticeable. Until then, his curls did a decent job at hiding it.

Ashton had a key to the apartment, of course, which he used on a regular basis. Originally, Calum had given him a copy of the key, because Michael kept forgetting his own and locking himself out. It was much more convenient for Ashton to have the spare key since Ashton and Michael kept more similar hours. They were hardly ever separated anyway, which was one of the reasons that Ashton was so insistent on using his key to wait around for Michael at home.

Calum did not mind Ashton treating this place as if it were his own. If it were not for the fact that Liam needed a roommate and the two bedroom apartments in this building, while tiny, were extremely affordable, all three of them would have probably moved in together. Calum, Michael, and Ashton had all considered living together when they were searching for apartments at the end of last semester, but when word got around that Liam’s last roommate was looking to move out, leaving a vacancy that Liam needed to fill, Ashton had apologetically taken the apartment. Everything worked out, though, as the two-bedroom apartment next door was free two months later, and Michael and Calum wasted no time in signing a lease.

The only thing that Calum really minded about Ashton was the fact that Ashton had a guilty pleasure of trashy reality television. It was something for which even Michael ribbed Ashton, but Ashton was always nice enough to change the channel whenever Michael or Calum wanted to watched television, too.

This time was no different. Calum had no sooner sat down than Ashton turned to a made-for-television movie. Truthfully, the alternative was no less trashy. Cringe-worthy sci-fi, however, was better than horrible reality television, so Calum did not complain. Neither did Michael, who plopped down right next to Ashton and immediately laid his head on Ashton’s shoulder. Michael fell asleep almost too quickly to even care about the choice in programming, always up for an afternoon nap.

One sci-fi movie turned into two then an hour-long low-budgeted fantastical program. Michael woke up sometime during the second movie, but he remained laying on Ashton. He spent the next couple of hours commentating what was on the screen, his lips brushing against the skin of Ashton’s neck. Calum laughed along with Ashton, both of them garnering more amusement from Michael than what was playing on the television. Calum doubted Michael could actually see much of the television screen with his face pressed like it was against Ashton, but the movie was entirely too predictable and the succeeding television show was so unbelievably corny that Michael’s obstructed line of sight was irrelevant.

By the time there was a knock at the door several hours later, Calum cheeks hurt from laughing so much at Michael. He peeled himself up off the couch and stretched his stiff muscles. He had been seated in one place for far too long. He had to crawl over both Michael and Ashton, because Michael refused to move or to allow Ashton to move.

Luke knocked a second time before Calum made it to the door, but Calum did not blame him. It had taken Calum a couple of tries to crawl his way to the opposite end of the couch. In hindsight, it would have been much easier to have just walked around the coffee table, but Calum’s eagerness to see Luke had clouded his judgment.

Calum took a steadying breath, willing his heart to stop beating like crazy in his chest, before he pulled the door open. It was Luke standing on the other side, just as expected. He was still dressed in his black work pants, but he had traded his polo for a faded t-shirt. Calum’s heart leaped in his chest, despite Calum’s earlier attempt to calm his own nerves. He beat back the warm fuzz of emotion that threatened to spread across his body. He grinned stupidly at Luke.

“Sorry, I’m a little late,” said Luke. He shuffled his feet uncertainly, holding out two boxes of pizza like they were a peace offering. “Tyler spilled an entire thing of marinara sauce from the hot bar as we were closing, and we had to clean that up before we left.”

Calum readied a reassurance on his tongue, but Michael beat him to the punch, saying, “It’s never too late for free pizza.”

Calum whipped around to find Michael smirking devilishly at him from the edge of the kitchen. Apparently the man who was too lazy to give Ashton personal space for the entire afternoon or to move so that Calum would not have to crawl across him just a moment ago had no such qualms about following Calum to answer the door. Calum glared at Michael, but Michael merely raised his eyebrows and nodded toward Luke in the doorway.

“Don’t just stand there, Calum. Let the man in,” said Michael without losing his smirk. He turned his attention to Luke. “I’m Michael. You’ll have to forgive Calum. Ashton and I are trying to teach him manners, but it’s a work in progress, as you can see.”

Luke laughed hesitantly, clearly finding Michael to be funny but unwilling to insult Calum. It was a needless worry, though, as Calum had known Michael for practically their entire lives, and Calum was all too used to Michael’s particular brand of humor. This was Michael’s way of sizing up Luke, of making sure that Luke was cordial toward Calum like Zayn never was.

When Michael met Calum’s gaze again, Michael’s smirk fell into a pleased smile. Luke had passed the test. It came as no great surprise to Calum, who remembered with great clarity how Zayn was even in the early days when Michael was not there. Zayn had never let on as if he was anything other than in complete control of everything around him. He had never, ever showed any uncertainty.

Luke was not Zayn.

Calum turned away from Michael, looking to Luke instead. He offered Luke a reassuring grin as he stepped away from the door to let Luke walk inside. Calum shut the door behind Luke since Luke’s hands were otherwise full. Michael directed Luke to bring the pizzas into the living room and put them on the coffee table. Calum followed them at a slower pace, collecting paper plates from the cabinet on his way.

When Calum joined them in the living room, Luke was seated in the spot on the couch Calum had vacated. He already looked just as at home as Ashton did, and Calm’s heart lurched once more in his chest. Michael caught him staring, elbowing him sharply in the ribs. Calum grunted. He glared over at Michael, but the darkening of his cheeks, evident to Michael’s well-practiced eye, undermined the effect for which he was aiming.

Michael, bless his soul, decided to have mercy upon Calum and not bring attention to how heart-eyed Calum was right now. Instead, he loaded his plate with the free pizza and sat down in the arm chair behind him, flipping off the overhead light as he went. This left the empty spot on the couch between Ashton and Luke for Calum.

“Care for the remote, Luke?” asked Ashton, playing the gracious host in an apartment that was not his. He reached over to turn off the light, because The opening credits to another made-for-television sci-fi movie played on the screen. This time it was zombies, an admittedly guilty pleasure of Calum’s. “There isn’t much on.”

Luke glanced at the television.

“I love zombies,” he said, and that was that—except Calum’s heart soared at the fact that somebody else appreciated the best creatures of the horror genre.

Calum bit back a grin as he settled into the spot between Ashton and Luke with a plate of pizza for himself. Unlike earlier when Ashton had been all too happy to sacrifice personal space whenever Michael was draped across him, Ashton had left little room for Calum to sit, which meant that Calum was seated so close to Luke’s side that he could hear Luke chew whenever Luke took a bite of pizza. Calum forced himself to concentrate on the television instead of the heat he could feel radiating from Luke’s thigh pressed next to his.

Just as Calum was beginning relax, Michael retracted his earlier vow of silence, leaning forward to look Luke straight in the eye and declaring, “We’re keeping you around, just so you know.”

Luke glanced at Calum first like he suspected Calum might disagree with Michael’s promise. Calum, his cheeks darkened into a blush that he hoped Luke could not detect, shot a quick glare at Michael for being so nefarious. Michael smiled innocently back at Calum, and Calum had the urge to turn the tides on Michael—to unkindly ask when exactly Michael and Ashton were going to stop with all the foreplay and jump into bed with one another instead—but the very idea of being so mean to Michael made Calum’s stomach roll. Michael was only intending to nudge Calum toward happiness, not embarrass him. 

“Michael just wants you for the free pizza,” said Calum, turning back to Luke with a smile. “I probably should have warned you beforehand.”

Luke laughed.

“As long as he isn’t the only one that wants to keep me around, I think I can forgive you just this once.”

“Good,” said Calum. “Because I quite like free pizza, too.”

Luke’s laugh faded into a smile. He nodded his head, satisfied with Calum’s response. His gaze lingered on Calum for a few seconds longer before he turned his attention back to the television, where a horde of zombies were threatening to overwhelm a stadium.

Calum forced himself to look away from Luke. He thought that perhaps Luke understood the words that Calum was not yet brave enough to speak—that Luke heard the _I like having you around, too_ that was too terrifying for Calum to say after everything that had happened the last time Calum had thought he liked having somebody around in such a manner. Maybe Luke did not understand why Calum could not admit that he liked having Luke around, but, for now, that did not matter.

“Those aren’t zombies,” insisted Luke, minutes later, on the third commercial break.

“It’s a dead man walking,” said Calum. He glanced over at Luke, meeting his eyes. The only lighting in the room came from the television, and it threw shadows across the contours of Luke’s face, sharply defining the lines of his amused expression. “How is that not a zombie?”

Luke stared at Calum for a moment, considering his response. Calum did not really care what Luke’s reasoning was. He liked listening to Luke speak, and arguing about zombies was a hundred times more entertaining than the movie itself was. Michael and Ashton joined in the debate, too. By the end of the movie, Luke had convinced all three of them that the zombies on screen were nothing more than regular humans making poor life choices.

Calum admitted defeat with a grin. He yawned in the next second and only then took note of the late hour. His stomach churned with dread. He did not want this night to end, but he had to work early in the morning. Luke probably had classes to go to. Calum comforted himself with the idea that he could always invite Luke back over tomorrow night and repeat this whole thing all over again.

“It’s pretty late,” said Luke, quietly, as the credits rolled.

Nobody made a move to get up, not even Ashton whose own bed was in an entirely different apartment. He looked ready to fall asleep sitting straight up. Calum figured that Michael would usher Ashton into his room under the excuse that Ashton should not wake up Liam at such a late hour. It would not be the first time.

“How far do you live?” asked Calum, speaking to Luke.

But Michael spoke over him and asked the better question of, “Why don’t you stay the night?”

Luke’s eyes shifted briefly to Calum, saying, with an air of forced reluctance, “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“You won’t be,” Calum assured him. “I’ll set you up on the couch.”

Calum smiled his thanks to Michael for being such a good friend who understood a little too well how broken Calum still was months after Zayn. Michael shrugged his silent response like it was no big deal. It was, though, and he knew it. He did not acknowledge it. Instead, he got up from his chair and walked over to Ashton.

“C’mon, Ash,” he said, hoisting Ashton up. Ashton let himself be pulled to his feet by Michael. Once there, he swayed unsteadily, but Michael’s hold on him was firm. Michael would not let him fall. “Let’s sleep in an actual bed, what d’you say?”

Ashton yawned, too tired to even pretend like he would rather sleep alone in his own bed. He bade Luke and Calum goodnight, and Michael echoed the sentiment. Together, the two of them disappeared into Michael’s bedroom, leaving Calum alone with Luke in the living room.

“Lemme get you some bedding,” offered Calum.

He started to gather up the mess from their late-night dinner off the coffee table. Luke stopped him, though, and offered to do it instead. Luke looked as dead on his feet as Calum felt, so Calum figured Luke would appreciate being able to get to sleep as soon as possible. Calum thanked Luke for the help, instructing Luke to just put everything on the counter in the kitchen so that either Calum or Michael could clean up better later.

While Luke straightened up the living room, Calum headed to his bedroom. He pulled out a sheet and a spare blanket from the top of his closet with which to make up the couch. He grabbed his best pillow off his bed, because if Luke was sleeping on the couch tonight, the least he deserved was to have the fluffiest pillow for his head. Once he had everything, he returned to the living room.

As promised, the mess was gone from the living room. Luke gave Calum a hand, and, together, they spread the sheet across the couch cushions. Fixing a makeshift bed was easy work between the two them that took practically no time whatsoever. Once finished, Luke sat gingerly down on the couch. He smiled up at Calum.

“Thank you for letting me stay—and inviting me over, as well. It has been an enjoyable evening.”

Calum nodded in agreement, unable to properly express how much he had enjoyed Luke’s company. Maybe there was not any words for it, or maybe Calum was too tired to think of any. Either way, Calum returned Luke’s smile with one of his own. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward his bedroom.

“If you need anything, I’ll be in there. Go ahead, and make yourself at home. Goodnight, Luke.”


	4. Full Marathon of Courage

When Calum had been young and stupid, he had met a man named Zayn. It had taken him nearly two years to realize how terrifyingly dangerous this was, but it had only taken Michael and Ashton three months. Calum had been too caught up in it all—too caught up in the idea of love to discover the ugly truth he had been blind to for entirely too long. Since then, he vowed to never be that stupid again.

Luke was sitting at the table eating breakfast when Calum emerged from his bedroom the next morning. Luke had discarded his trousers, presumably so that he could sleep. Now, he was dressed only in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. He looked just as at home here as Ashton would—as Michael and Calum themselves would.

“Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself,” said Luke as a greeting. He had a mouthful of oatmeal and cinnamon toast, but he was nice enough to offer Calum the extra piece of toast. “Michael bribed me into making him breakfast before he and Ashton left this morning.”

Calum snorted, but he turned down the offered toast.

“Of course, he did,” said Calum, amused and not at all surprised. Michael had an art for convincing people to do what he wanted them to. “Try not to let him talk you into, like, robbing a bank or something, all right? Because he will totally try just to see if he can.”

“Noted,” responded Luke, grinning.

He took another large bite of his breakfast, oatmeal and then the toast. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten such a delicious meal in ages. The idea of that, though, was ridiculous. It was only instant oatmeal and, if Calum guessed correctly, Michael’s granny’s secret cinnamon toast recipe. It was nothing special.

“I’m going to go take a quick shower,” said Calum. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder toward the bathroom, though Luke already knew where it was. “You can have one, too, if you’d like. What time does your classes start today?”

“In a couple of hours,” answered Luke. “I’ll just clean up here and hop in the shower after you’re done, if that’s all right.”

“Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll do them up tonight,” said Calum.

Luke rolled his eyes as he waved Calum out of the kitchen. It was probably for the best if Calum went ahead and showered instead of argue with Luke over something as mundane as dishes. There was only one bathroom in the apartment. They both had to leave soon, Luke to classes and Calum to work. If Calum wanted to be a gracious host and carry through with his offer for Luke to have a shower before they left the apartment, Calum shouldn’t waste any more time.

The shower was steamy, relaxing in the way Calum preferred it. He didn’t let himself enjoy it for too long, though. He washed himself quickly then wrapped a towel around his waist, hardly bothering to properly dry off. He could do that when he got dressed in his bedroom.

As Calum emerged from the bathroom, Luke stacked the final clean dish in the drainer. Calum grunted his displeasure, folding his arms across his bare, damp chest. Luke jumped, startled, and whipped around to face Calum, who further expressed his displeasure by glaring at the clean dishes. Luke glanced over his shoulder briefly then turned back to face Calum. He shrugged, his expression a hybrid of smugness and sheepishness.

Fondness rose up in Calum’s chest like a wave. His glare dissipated into nothingness as a smile formed on his lips. Luke, in turn, smirked, proud of disobeying Calum’s earlier command. Calum got the urge to cross the kitchen right now and lay a kiss right on Luke’s lips—to overwhelm Luke’s smirk with his own lips. That wasn’t something friends typically did or even thought about. Calum stayed rooted to his spot next to the bathroom.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I didn’t invite you over here—or to stay the night—so that you would do all of my housework.”

“I didn’t do all your housework,” countered Luke. He paused for a second, his eyes sweeping over Calum’s bare chest. Then, as if he caught himself doing something he shouldn’t be, he shook his head. A second later, he lifted his gaze back up to meet Calum’s eyes. A faint blush tickled at his cheeks. “It was only the dishes. Well, I mean, I also folded up my bedding, but I figured that I might as well since I used them, but I didn’t, like, make up yours or Michael’s beds.”

“Probably because Ashton has already made sure Michael’s bed is immaculate,” retorted Calum.

He rolled his eyes at the very idea, but he couldn’t deny the surge of jealousy that buzzed underneath his skin whenever he thought about how simple Michael and Ashton’s relationship really was—not that the two of them actually noticed the simplicity with the love struck dance they were currently engaged in. It was just that they certainly never woke up screaming in the middle of the night with nightmares of the past and the mountainous fear that there was a monster—a real life, breathing _monster_ wearing human skin—in the bedroom. Calum envied them.

“I should probably show you how to work the shower real quick before you actually do go make my bed,” added Calum after a beat. He waved Luke over to the bathroom. “Mercy knows you didn’t listen to me about the dishes.”

Luke barked out a laugh, not at all offended. He came as he was beckoned, but, nearly there, he cheekily headed toward Calum’s room instead. Calum sidestepped in front of him, shaking his head fondly at Luke’s antics. Luke smirked at him again. Calum’s desire to kiss Luke increased tenfold, so he manhandled Luke into bathroom to avoid doing something stupid like actually _follow through with that urge_.

The shower was pretty simple once Calum showed Luke the trick to it, but it had taken Calum and Michael an entire month and a half of daily showers to figure out to never, ever touch the cold water knob once the hot water was running. Calum had been known to accidentally break the cardinal rule occasionally on mornings when he was feeling especially tired. He didn’t wish the same fate on Luke now.

He showed Luke to the linen closet and let Luke pick the fluffiest towel. Usually, Calum himself grabbed it up before Michael could, but this morning, he had chosen one at random, preferring to let Luke have the best. Calum was nothing if not a good host.

After telling Luke he could have his choice of the toiletries that were already in the shower, Calum excused himself from the bathroom. His skin was practically dry by now, but the towel around his hips was still damp. He took it off and hung it over the rod in his closet before he started to get dressed for the day.

Once dressed, Calum headed into the kitchen to grab some breakfast. It consisted of a large cup of coffee and a toaster pastry he didn’t bother to heat up. Compared to Luke’s earlier offer, it was a pitiful meal, but Calum had never been one who ate large breakfasts, not even as a child.

It took Luke about twenty minutes to shower and get ready for the day. Calum needed to leave for work, and Luke had classes, so they left the apartment together. They rode the elevator down in silence and then, before they parted ways in the parking lot, Luke thanked Calum for an enjoyable night like a proper gentleman.  

Smiling to himself and thinking nothing but how much he would like to repeat this morning every day for the rest of his life, Calum climbed into his own car. The air was a little cool for a late summer morning, but he rolled down the car windows as he commuted to work. The traffic was light at this time of day, as it was well after rush hour. He arrived to the store fifteen minutes later, and he parked close to the back entrance.

Josh waved from the cash register as Calum went to clock in. The tag on his shirt stuck out, barely visible underneath his dark hair. Calum adjusted it as he walked past, tucking it between the fabric of the polo and the silver chain of Josh’s ever-present necklace. He was careful to not interrupt his boss’s conversation with the upset customer.

In the storage room, Calum peeked at the work binder, and dread instantly filled his chest. Harry’s shift was to begin an hour before Calum’s own ended. Calum was no fonder of the new employee than he had been when Harry was first hired. It had a lot to do with how slowly Harry seemed to grasp even the simplest of tasks. Also, Harry always seemed to wear a smug smile on his face whenever he was around Calum, as if he knew something Calum didn’t, and it set Calum’s nerves on end.

The shoe section of the store needed to be stocked, so Calum grabbed a cart and headed toward the shelves. The store was dead, as it usually was during this shift on Thursdays, so there were hardly any customers interrupting his work. He sped through the shoes then moved on to organizing the exercise movies. After that, he took the trash out to the dumpster at the back end of the parking lot then vacuumed the floor near the fishing supplies.

“Great day, isn’t it?” greeted Harry when he came in for his shift. He stopped by the fishing section on his way back to the storage room, much to Calum’s chagrin. He wore his signature smug grin. His eyes twinkled to match it. “Where’s the inventory list?”

“Where it always is—in the back beside the work binder,” said Calum, already annoyed with Harry. He said it with a little more heat than he had intended, and he watched as the grin dropped from Harry’s face. A spike of satisfaction rose then died in Calum’s chest.

“You don’t have to be so pissy about it,” said Harry. He was frowning now.

Calum sighed. He could feel a headache start to form behind his eyes. Harry had only started his shift, which meant that Calum had another hour before he himself could leave. It was going to be a very long span of sixty minutes.

“Look—if you have any questions, I’m sure Josh won’t mind helping you out. I have to vacuum the shoe section.”

Calum stalked off, unwilling to answer the one hundred questions Harry no doubt had this shift. Josh could deal with him, as Josh was the man who hired Harry. Calum wanted nothing to do with Harry, at least not while there was a throbbing ache behind his eyes.

The shoe section was across the store from the fishing supplies, which put ample amount of space between Calum and Harry. The shelves that Calum had labored over earlier were still, for the most part, in order. He straightened up the few mislaid boxes on his way to the electrical outlet.

Ten minutes into his vacuuming, Calum’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. His breath caught in his throat, and his blood turned to ice. He finally— _finally_ —made the connection that had been eluding him for weeks. He finally realized why Harry raised every single red flag and why Harry had seemed so familiar on that first day: Harry ran in the same crowd as Zayn. Harry was _friends_ with Zayn, the man who haunted Calum’s past as well as his nightmares.

For the rest of his shift, Calum could hardly breathe. His hands trembled as he dragged the vacuum back to the storage room, and he jumped whenever there was any sort of loud noise. He picked the one job in the work binder that assured him the safety of the backroom where, sorting paperwork, he could make sure nobody could sneak up on him.

His fear was probably ridiculous, considering that Harry had been working at the store for weeks and had neither mentioned Zayn by name nor showed up one day with Zayn in tow. Fears were hardly ever rational. At least, the terrifying, gut-wrenching anxiety that rose in Calum’s chest at the mere mention of Zayn’s name was irrational. Calum hadn’t seen Zayn since Michael and Ashton scared him off. Zayn shouldn’t still have this much power over Calum.

Buried in paperwork, Calum almost missed the exact moment his shift ended, but, by chance, he didn’t. He couldn’t wait to get out of the store and away from Harry, who, other than throwing smug grins in Calum’s direction, had yet to do anything to warrant Calum’s fear. Calum pushed aside all thoughts of Zayn and Harry, and he clocked out, nearly running out of the store.

Once inside of his car, he took a deep breath. He held it for a moment, willing his heart rate to slow down. He let it out slowly, just like his old therapist had taught him to do. He did this a few more times until the sharp claws of fear began to dull around his heart and he finally felt well enough to drive.

 It was his designated lunch break, so he swung by a restaurant on his way to campus. If he didn’t eat now, he wouldn’t be able to until after his classes. He knew that his stomach would be rumbling by then. His light breakfast wouldn’t tie him over. He got a burger and an order of fries from the fast food joint at the light down from the store, and he ate it on his way to campus.

After parking behind the stadium, he gathered his paper trash as he got out of his car and threw it away in the nearby garbage can. He took the steps up to the quad two at a time, a soothing rhythm that made him feel more human and less strung out with every passing second. His building was on the other side of the campus. He cut across the grass to save time, which ended up being a good decision a few minutes later as he was one of the last to file into the room.

Ashton was already seated at a computer like the over-achieving, star-student he was. The pink scar on his forehead peaked out from underneath his curls, but Calum noted, as he took the seat next to Ashton, that it looked a little better than it had last night.

“Have you spoken with Michael?” asked Ashton in lieu of a greeting. When Calum shook his head, Ashton didn’t look surprised. “I think he wants to adopt Luke. I mean, not literally, of course, but he did give Luke an open invitation to your alls’ apartment, and I didn’t even get that until two weeks after you two moved in.”

“Because Michael knew you’d keep coming over to see him regardless of whether you had an invitation or not,” retorted Calum.

“Hey, I don’t discriminate. I visit both of you,” said Ashton.

A blush spread over his cheeks, belying his statement. The sheepish smile that followed signaled his own defeat. Up front, the professor began class. Calum couldn’t resist garnering a good laugh on Ashton’s behalf nonetheless.

“So you going to sleep over in my room next time?”

“Shut up,” said Ashton, shoving at Calum’s shoulder as the blush darkened on his own cheeks. “It’s just—Michael’s room is a lot nicer than mine. It’s not as—as lonely.”

“Yeah, it’s got him in it.”

Ashton huffed, rolling his eyes. He was so finished with this conversation. Calum barked out a laugh that he immediately muffled into a cough whenever the professor at the front of the room turned her attention on him. He nodded politely at her, a ruse of an apology and waited for the professor to continue her lecture before he turned back to his computer.

“He seems to be a good guy, doesn’t he?” muttered Ashton a moment later. He wasn’t looking at Calum. Instead, his gaze was trained on the monitor in front of him. He didn’t need to specify that he was talking about Luke. “Very proper—he made us breakfast, you know, and, well, to be honest, if Michael doesn’t steal him, I might.”

“I found him first,” said Calum, possessively.

Ashton grinned as if that was the response he had been leading Calum toward. Satisfied, he said nothing the rest of the class. Up front, the professor finished lecturing and set them loose to do their work, so Calum kept quiet, too. He needed a good grade in this class, because he needed to hours to graduate on time, so he focused his full attention on the assignment before him.

When class was finished, Calum had another one, but Ashton, as usual, was finished for the day. They at the steps leading down from their classroom. Calum took the side door out, because it was the closest to the English building down the hill.

It was drizzling rain. The sky overhead was a whitewashed gray and darkening. It would probably be full-on pouring by the time Calum finished up his own classes. He hurried across campus, nearly slipping across the concrete that was growing steadily slicker. He didn’t bother going around the building to take the front door inside. Instead, he wrenched open the side door and took the set of stairs downward to the lowest level. On the bottom flight, he stumbled over an uneven step. A hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder, effortlessly steadying him.

“Easy there.”

Calum froze, his entire body going rigid at the familiar voice. He shrank back, habitually making himself smaller. His eyes widened almost comically—though there was nothing at all comical about the fear that washed over him in trembling waves. His heart skipped a beat in his chest. The hand on his shoulder felt as if it were composed of fire, burning hot and wild against the ghosts of bruises that had once marred Calum’s skin. Calum choked on his next breath, unable to draw it into his lungs. It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the stairwell.

Zayn was handsome. Even with the history that had transpired between the two men, Calum had to admit the stunning good looks which the man possessed. He was well-built, standing tall over Calum in his confident demeanor like Goliath the Giant. His dark hair was windswept and wetted against his forehead by the rain outside. He looked as if he stepped straight out of Calum’s worst nightmare.

“I haven’t seen you around in a while,” said Zayn.

He greeted Calum like they were old friends, offering Calum a crooked smile. It was one that Calum had seen twist into ugly smirks more times than he could count. The lighting in the stairwell was dim, but Zayn’s smile was bright enough, holding Calum captivated like it had that very first time it had been turned on him. For a moment, all Calum could do was stare as his heart sunk lower and lower in his chest.

A door upstairs slammed shut, and footsteps pounded down the steps. The sound echoed harshly in the tiny space, knocking sense back into Calum. He stumbled away from Zayn’s hand even as it tried to tighten around his shoulder. Calum slipped away.

He forced himself to think about Michael and Ashton and what they would do in this situation. Neither would be happy to see Calum cowering, especially not after everything that had done to build him back up. He was stronger than this. He could face Zayn. He had before, so he drew himself up to full height. It made him a little taller than Zayn, and he felt a tiny bit braver.

“There’s a good reason for that,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to class.”

“Cultural Writing?” asked Zayn, seemingly oblivious to Calum’s eagerness to get away.

He moved back toward Calum and crowded into Calum’s space. He lifted his arm as if he were going in for a hug. Calum took a step back, farther out of Zayn’s reach, and shot him a dirty glare. Calum felt a flash of satisfaction as Zayn took a step away from him.

“Look? Can we start over?” asked Zayn.

His eyes were soft, and chewed on his bottom lip like he was actually nervous about Calum’s response. Calum, though, wasn’t fooled. Not again. Calum snorted, unkindly, and Zayn’s face contorted indignantly for a moment before he schooled his expression back to mock-hopeful.

It only served to prove Calum right. Zayn was pulling the same trick he always tried. Calum had wasted two years of his life catering to Zayn’s every need, and he was not about to make that mistake again. Truthfully, Calum didn’t know if he could survive such a colossal error of judgment again.

“No, we can’t. Whatever we had between us, it’s over. It should’ve been over a lot sooner than it was, but I can’t change the past. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to class.”

Calum turned on his heel and stalked out of the stairwell without waiting for a response, because Zayn did not deserve that consideration. His heart pounded in his chest as if he had just run a full marathon, and his entire body trembled with anxiety. But he had done it. He had stood up to Zayn—he had proved that he wouldn’t let Zayn control him any longer. That was all that mattered. It was a small victory.

In the wake of it all, though, Calum’s concentration was shot for the rest of his classes. He considered ditching his last one, but, as attendance was an important part of the grade, he dragged himself to a seat in the back. He prayed that the professor wouldn’t call on him to answer a question.

The professor didn’t, which was probably for the best. Calum left the classroom and couldn’t recall a single thing the professor had said. He wasn’t even sure what the lecture was about. He hoped that it wouldn’t be anything he needed to know for midterm.

It was late in the evening. The earlier drizzle had, as predicted, turned into a proper rain shower. Calum trudged across campus to his car without an umbrella, as he hadn’t thought to bring one with him. He was soaked by the time he climbed into the driver’s seat, and he wanted nothing more than to just go home and curl up in his bed and sleep for the rest of forever. He was so tired—emotionally drained and mentally exhausted after his run-in with Zayn.

When Calum neared the third stoplight away from campus, he flipped on his blinker and whipped his car into the parking lot of the local pizza place. It was a spur of the moment decision, but he spotted Luke’s own car parked in the employees’ lot in the back. Calum knew right then that he would feel leagues better stopping in for a bite of pizza and, hopefully, to see Luke than he would curled up in his loneliness.

He tried to ignore how outlandishly soaked he still was from walking across campus in the rain as he entered the restaurant. He sat down at one of the tables near the front where he had a good view of the kitchen in the back. He tried to make it seem like he wasn’t looking for a particular worker, but Tyler, the waiter who shared a couple of classes with him this semester, gave Calum a knowing wink as he took Calum’s order. Calum blushed to the tips of his ears and ducked away to the buffet bar to avoid having to acknowledge Tyler’s insinuation for the truth that it was.

Luke was already seated at Calum’s chosen table when Calum returned with his plate full of pizza. There were two glasses of soda and a bowl of pasta in front of Luke. He grinned up at Calum as he scooted one of the glasses across the table.

“Hello, stranger,” said Luke. He was dressed in his uniform, though his cap was clipped to the belt loop of his trousers. There was a smudge of sauce across his cheek, which Calum had to resist the urge to wipe off for him. He looked happy but tired. “Want some company? It’s my break.”

Just like that, a warm, fuzzy emotion bubbled up Calum’s chest, chasing away all of the bad thoughts that clung to the corners of Calum’s mind. Luke was nothing short of magical. Calum felt loads better than he had before he had come in, and he was glad that he hadn’t gone straight home to wallow in his anxiety again.

“I have great timing then,” said Calum, eager for Luke’s company, and his enthusiasm made Luke grin even wider. “It’s been a pretty shit day, to be honest. I thought, uh, maybe stopping in to visit you might make it better.”

Luke dropped his gaze to his pasta. A faint blush rose on his cheeks. He took a deep breath, and, in the next second, glanced up at Calum through his eyelashes.

“And has it?”

He sounded so hopeful, so Calum nodded without even pausing to think. It was true. Calum felt like a load of anxiety had been lifted off his shoulders, but it also wasn’t quite the truth. Unfortunately, Luke wasn’t an end-all, cure-all—not that it was fair of Calum to expect anybody to be. Calum still felt shaky all over. When he reached for his plastic glass to take a drink, his hands trembled so badly he nearly spilled his soda all over the table.

Thankfully, Luke’s reflexes were quick enough to steady the glass before Calum made a mess, and his long fingers wrapping around those of Calum. He held them there until Calum stopped shaking so much. It was such an intimate gesture, and it had been so long— _too_ long—since Calum had felt his skin buzz with the energy of somebody else’s adoration. Calum wasn’t even sure he ever felt it from Zayn. He didn’t want to remember it he did. Luke was nothing like Zayn. It wasn’t nice to compare them, not even in Calum’s mind.

The touch was nice, but Calum’s stomach churned as if two armies of butterflies were raging war inside of it. He couldn’t handle Luke’s innocent hold anymore, not unless he leaned across the table right now and pressed their lips together. That was unprecedented. Probably unwelcomed, too. So, Calum quickly retracted his hand. He ignored the red flush to his face as he sucked a drink of his soda though the straw and willed his heart to stop racing. He and Luke were _friends_. Nothing more.

“Want to talk about it?” asked Luke.

He had a friendly expression on his face, open and warm. It was still obvious that he sensed the inner turmoil that had racked Calum since meeting Zayn in the stairwell. Luke didn’t force Calum to speak, though. He just let Calum know that he would listen if Calum needed somebody to, and Calum appreciated Luke’s gentleness so much—almost too much for words.

For a moment, Calum considered not answering. He carefully chewed his pizza in lieu of a response, but Luke’s patient expression never slipped from his face. Calum took a second to appreciate how easy this was with Luke—how easy it was to share a meal with Luke as if they had been friends for years. The truth was, though, that it was the farthest from reality, and Calum was selfishly glad that Luke had not known him during the Zayn era of his life.

“Ran into an ex-boyfriend,” was what Calum finally said. He owed it to Luke, in the unspoken contract of their new friendship, to at least provide some sort of explanation. He still had no desire to discuss the subject of Zayn, so he hoped a vague response was appropriate enough.

“I’ve been there,” responded Luke, lips quirking into a grin. Mirth twinkled in his eyes as if he were cued into the mysterious identity of Calum’s ex-boyfriend. It was like they shared an inside joke. “I’m sure you won that break up. Most of my experiences with exes seem to occur when I’m six sheets to the wind, so I never get to really determine if I win the break ups or not.”

Luke laughed, so Calum did, too, and their laughter blended so beautifully together. This was the perfect opportunity to change the subject and never talk about Zayn again. Luke was giving him that option, and, yet, the next words spilled uninhibited from Calum’s lips. Luke’s smile faded with every word Calum said.  

“He was a bit of an ass, and I was too stupid to realize it at the time. It’s how I met Ashton, you know. Ash can be a bit of a spitfire when he has to be. Certainly was getting my ass away from that bastard. But, hey—let’s not talk about that. Too depressing. How’s your day been?”

Given the opportunity, most people would have latched onto the topic of Calum’s ex-boyfriend regardless of any diversion but not Luke. The only sign of the previous topic of conversation was the lingering sad twist to Luke’s lips. He took Calum’s subject change in stride and launched into a story about nearly knocking himself out in the library with a book he needed for his research paper.

Calum sat back in his seat, losing himself to the rhythm of Luke’s voice, and, finally, the last vestiges of anxiety disappeared. For the first time all afternoon, Calum drew in an easy breath. He laughed in all of the right places in Luke’s story, and he found himself wondering what it would be like to fall in love with Luke.

But maybe that wasn’t much of a mystery. Maybe Calum was already falling in love with him.  


	5. Mood Ring

Calum began to make it a habit to have his lunch, or, on the occasions when he was still on campus, his dinner at the local pizza place whenever Luke was working. They grew closer in friendship over warm pizza and tossed salad. It was easy between them. Calum still got anxious sometimes, thinking about Zayn or after catching a glimpse of Zayn around campus, but Luke always distracted him and never, not even once, asked Calum why he was pale and trembling when Luke had every right in the world to be curious.

Sometimes, Michael or Ashton would join them for lunch. For the most part, though, it was just Calum and Luke huddled around a small table talking and laughing as if they were old friends. As the days bled into one another and stepping into the local pizza place became second nature to Calum, the other workers merely handed him a plastic cup in lieu of the standard greeting then sent Luke on his break, so accustomed to the budding friendship between the pair that nobody minded whenever Luke was a few minutes late clocking back in from his break.

The weeks progressed. The late summer heat gave way to the beginning of the autumn chill. The leaves began to turn brilliantly beautiful colors, and then, almost without Calum realizing it, the fall campus festival loomed around the corner.

On one particular day in late October, Calum shivered in his thick winter jacket as he and Michael trekked across campus to their classes. The air was chillier than usual at this time of the year, a product of a brutal cold front that was blowing down from the north. Calum hated the cold. He dreaded the impending winter and having to fight his way through the ice and the snow to barely heated classrooms.

Next to him, Michael was dressed a little warmer. He always had to bundle up in thick sweaters underneath bulky winter coats and flannel underwear underneath his jeans. He, for once, wasn’t wearing a pair of his favored skinny jeans, and Calum knew that, as the weather grew even colder, Michael’s love for those jeans would take a backseat to Michael’s perpetual need to wear a multitude of layers. Michael always ran a tad bit on the cold side of things. Even now, as they wind blew icy air, Michael face was almost hidden by his beanie and one of Ashton’s scarves that was wrapped up to his nose.

“Are you going to Josh’s Halloween party?” inquired Michael.

He was shivering, despite his warmer clothes. It was obvious in the wobble in his voice, but Calum was nice enough to ignore it—mainly because Calum knew he probably wouldn’t sound much better if he were to speak. Calum really wished he would have thought to have worn a hat at the very least.

“It’s on a Friday, isn’t it?” he asked, but he knew the answer. Calum had tagged along with Ashley to it the year prior. Josh’s annual Halloween bash was always the Friday before Halloween. “I told Josh this morning that we’d all make it—you, me, and Ash.”

Michael made a noise in the back of his throat. It might have been a grunt of acknowledgement, but Calum suspected it was an aborted cough. Calum narrowed his eyes at Michael, a sense of dread welling up in his chest. A sick Michael was a complainy Michael, and only Ashton could deal with the wrath of such a sneezing beast. Calum made a mental note to stock up on cold medicine the next time he went to the store.

“You should invite Luke,” said Michael a beat later. Any trace of the possible cough was gone. He turned to look at Calum. The corners of his eyes were crinkled mischievously, and Calum would bet every dollar he owned that Michael had a shit-eating grin on his face underneath the scarf.

“Michael,” said Calum, warningly.

“Calum,” parroted Michael. He rolled his eyes. “You’re friends, right? Invite him.”

“Don’t pretend like that’s the reason you want me to invite him,” said Calum, because he knew Michael all too well. “Luke and I are just friends. Nothing more.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” asked Michael, mock-innocently. “Invite Luke to the party, because he’s your friend.”

Calum sighed. Michael could be impossible sometimes, especially whenever Michael got an idea such as this in his head. Calum wanted to be upset with Michael—he did—but it was hard to fault Michael for wanting Calum to chase after what Calum really wanted. Calum was well beyond the place where he could deny that he was interested in dating Luke.

The problem, though, was that Calum wasn’t sure he was in the correct place just yet to actually want to date anybody, let alone Luke.

“It was only a thought,” said Michael, a beat later.

They had made it to his building now. Calum’s was the next one over. This was their parting spot. It was chilly, and both of them were still shivering in their coats, but Michael drew to a stop, so Calum did, too.

“If you’d rather, Ashton or I will ask Luke, but I really think that it’d be good for him to go. I mean, we’re all friends, yeah? It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“What if it does?” challenged Calum.

Michael, always observant when it came to Calum, heard the question Calum was actually asking: _what if something does happen between Luke and me, but I don’t like it?_

“Luke isn’t Zayn,” said Michael. He winced as Calum tried to poorly disguise the flinch that played across his face at the mention of the monster’s name. Calum, though, needed to be reminded of the difference between a potential healthy relationship and the unhealthy one he had had with Zayn. “If you tell Luke to stop, he will stop, and if he doesn’t, well, I’m pretty sure you remember that Ashton has a mean right hook—and if that fails, I’ll sock him in the gut and we’ll run to Josh, all right? Nobody can stand up to Josh.”

 It was a crack at humor, albeit a poor, haphazard one, but Calum managed to chuckle for Michael’s sake. He understood what it was that Michael was trying to do—that Michael was trying to keep him from living in the ever-present fear that Zayn had instilled in his heart. Michael was Calum’s best friend, and if there was anybody in the entire world that Calum should take at face-value and trust with his entire being, it was Michael.

“Thanks, Mikey,” said Calum, because it was important that he expressed his gratitude for one of the two people who had literally saved his life nearly a year ago. It was important that he didn’t take Michael, or Ashton, for granted, because there was a time when Calum was alone with Zayn, and he never, ever wanted to be that vulnerable again. “Do you need a ride back to the apartment after your classes or is Ashton taking you?”

“Liam gets out of class the same time I do. He’s going to drive me back, because Ashton’s working this afternoon.”

“Again?” said Calum, surprised. “That’s everyday for the past three weeks.”

“Yeah, and Liam said that Ashton doesn’t get in until, like, late, _late_ in the nights.”

That was news to Calum, but it did explain why he had barely seen Ashton over the past few weeks despite living next door to his best friend. In fact, if Calum racked his brain, he had recently only seen Ashton during the few times Ashton had stopped by the pizza place for lunch. A sense of cold anxiety tugged at the edges of Calum’s mind. It wasn’t like Ashton to go so long without spending time with his friends, especially Michael, who he valued more than anybody or anything in the entire world. Calum pushed aside his worry. It was probably nothing. Ashton had always been hardworking. Yet…

“I thought the music store closed at ten on most nights?”

“Exactly,” said Michael, chewing on his bottom lip and looking Calum straight in the eye.

Calum didn’t know what to say in response to that, because he didn’t know what to make of the fact that Ashton’s job down at the music store didn’t account for how little Calum had seen him as of late or for the odd hours Liam claimed he kept. Michael didn’t seem to know what else to say on the subject, either.

In the end, Michael shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel, and headed toward the front door of his building. Perhaps that was the only way to deal with this revelation. Whether it was or not, though, didn’t matter in the long run. Classes were to begin in a few minutes. Calum watched Michael disappear into his building before he, too, headed to class. It wasn’t as easy to ignore the worry tugging at the edges of his mind as he would have liked it to be.

Once inside of his own building, Calum broke out into a sweat almost immediately. The outside was a brutal chill for late October, but, in here, the heating unit knocked off the brunt of the cold air. Calum appreciated the heat, as he stopped shivering almost instantly. He hurried to undo the zip of his coat before he began to sweat inside of it.

His classroom was located one floor up, so he headed for the stairs. When he reached the top landing and went through the door into the second floor hallway, he spotted a familiar head of blond hair. He smiled to himself, feeling overjoyed in a way that was absolutely not platonic. It was almost scary, except that a tiny voice in the back of his mind, which sounded eerily like Michael, reminded him that Luke wasn’t Zayn.

With that thought, Calum dashed forward, pirouetting around a group of students huddled near the water fountain. He placed his hand on Luke’s shoulder, gently tugging Luke around to face him. He had a friendly greeting ready on his lips, but his mind went blank as Luke stumbled into a turn, shying out of Calum’s reach. Luke froze when he realized it was only Calum, and he tried for an apologetic smile for his bizarre reaction. It fell dead on his lips.

Calum gasped involuntarily. His stomach churned so violently with horror that Calum had to swallow against the urge to vomit. He had felt the way Luke had tensed underneath his hand in the second Calum’s fingers had curled around Luke’s shoulder. Still, it did nothing to prepare Calum for the ugly bruise colored blue and purple and red that stained Luke’s fair face, encircling his right eye like a mood ring fitted too tightly around a finger.

“What the hell happened to you?” demanded Calum.

The question fell unhindered from his lips. He was almost overwhelmed with the urge to reach out and run his fingers along the outline of the bruise, and he had to ball his hand into a fist when it twitched to do just that. He stopped himself in time to keep from reach out but not quick enough to go completely unnoticed by Luke, whose gaze darted down to Calum’s hand. Calum thought he might have seen a flash of fear in Luke’s eyes—which would be ridiculous, because Calum was the last person anybody would ever fear—but it was gone so quickly that Calum wasn’t sure it was even there in the first place.

“It was an accident,” said Luke. He laughed shakily at his own stupidity like it really was that innocent. Maybe it was. A grimaced chased away his short laugh when it stretched his skin taut across his bruise. The white of his eye was colored red, as well. “Tyler knocked over a stack of pizza boxes.”

 “I didn’t realize the pizza business was so hazardous”

Luke offered him a grin, nodding once but saying nothing else. A nameless student, in a rush to her class, bumped against Calum, knocking him into Luke. She hurried off without looking back. Calum grabbed Luke’s arm to keep himself upright, and a strange, pinched expression flashed across Luke’s face. Calum grimaced at himself. Luke obviously didn’t like being touched, so Calum dropped Luke’s arm as quickly as he could. He muttered an apology that Luke shrugged off.

“I should, uh, get to class,” murmured Luke. He took a step back, and it was then that Calum realized how closely they had been standing to each other. Luke hesitated, an uncertain furrow to his eyebrows. “You’ll stop by the pizza place for dinner, right?”

“Don’t I always?” responded Calum, smiling. Their dinner, or sometimes lunch, dates had become a standing tradition. It was puzzling that Luke even felt the need to ask if he would see Calum during his shift.

“Yeah, of course,” said Luke, nodding his head. The motion was jerky in relief. His lips quirked into the briefest smile. “I’ll, uh, see you then?”

“See you then,” parroted Calum.

The pair parted ways. Luke’s classroom was the next door on the right, but Calum’s was the end of the hall. The crowd in the hallway had noticeably thinned over the past few minutes. Calum glanced at the clock on the wall, which told him that classes were already slated to begin. He was technically late, but he spotted his professor emerging from the opposite stairwell, and he scrambled to get into the room before the professor shut the door behind her.

All of Calum’s classes passed at a snail’s pace. Calum listened to the lectures, scribbled down notes, and doodled in the margins of his paper. Throughout each of his classes, the talk of the students was the upcoming fall festival that would officially kick off Saturday. It was the highlight of the fall semester, as it was filled with fun activities for the students to do in order to relieve some of the stress that hung onto the coattails of midterms and barreled toward the impending finals. Calum was particularly looking forward to the carnival night so that he could drink fruity alcoholic beverages that turned his mouth funny colors and laugh as Michael and Ashton dominated the three-legged race.

By the time his classes were over, the upcoming fall festival was the farthest thing from his mind. He was more preoccupied with the dinner date he had with Luke—which wasn’t actually a _date_ date in the sense that Calum might have preferred. He didn’t even know for sure if Luke was gay, and, even if he was, Calum wasn’t sure that he himself was ready for anything more than a platonic relationship. Still, though, he liked calling his dinners with Luke dates even if they were nothing more than a meal between friends. It felt like progress to him, the idea that he was open to the possibility of something more, and that was enough for now.

When Calum reached the parking lot, though, he stopped dead in his tracks, and any thoughts of dinner with Luke fled his mind at the sight with which he was met. Ashley was waiting on him, leaning up against the hood of his car. That alone was enough to set off alarms in Calum’s mind, but the hunched figured of Ashton standing next to her made the pit of Calum’s stomach freefall to the ground.

“What’s going on?” asked Calum, his voice thin, as he eyed Ashton warily.

Ashton folded even farther in on himself, sensing Calum’s heavy, inquisitive gaze. Ashton’s curls were matted with sweat and dirt. They hung over his eyes, shielding most of his face from Calum’s view. The clothes he wore hung loosely off his frame. They must have been Josh’s, because Josh’s clothes would swamp anybody. Ashton’s arms were folded across his chest, and he was holding on so tightly to the folds of the overly large hoodie that his knuckles were white.

“Can you take him home?” asked Ashley. She plastered on a fake smile. It didn’t reach her eyes, and it only served to enhance the anxiety building in Calum’s chest. “I have to get to class, or I would.”

“Of course, I can,” said Calum, automatically.

He would do just about anything Ashley asked him on behalf of Ashton right now, because he was terrified of the trembling, hunched form of Ashton that was before him. He wanted to ask why exactly he needed to take Ashton home when Ashton’s own vehicle was parked haphazardly a few spots down from Calum’s own. The parking job, though, looked like it was Ashley’s, because Ashton would never in a million years double-park. That tiny detail alone was enough to set Calum’s nerves on end. There was a reason Ashley had driven Ashton’s car to campus— _to Calum_ —and he wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get in out of the cold?” suggested Calum, speaking to Ashton like he was a scared wild animal. It made Calum sick at his stomach to think that, eleven months ago, Ashton had spoken to him like this, and, now, Calum was doing it to Ashton. “Take the keys, and start up the car. Get it warm.”

He crossed the space to Ashton to hand him the keys, but Ashton shrank back from him. Calum stopped immediately, his entire body going rigid as his heart broke in his chest at Ashton’s reaction. Ashton had always been a tactile person.

Calum turned to Ashley, helpless. He didn’t know how to approach his best friend, and he felt like a failure. Ashton had always known how to treat Calum, even back when Calum flinched at every single loud noise. Calum should know how to handle Ashton.

“It’s okay, Ash,” murmured Ashley.

Calum noted how she didn’t attempt to touch Ashton. She took the keys from Calum and held them out to Ashton, keeping her hand within his field of view the entire time. Calum held his breath. For a long moment, Ashton didn’t move. He only stared at the shiny keys in the palm of Ashley’s hand as if he were debating whether or not this was a trick. Calum had to swallow around the lump that rose in his throat.

In the end, Ashton must have determined Ashley meant no harm. He reached out with a trembling hand and slowly wrapped his fingers around the hoop of the key ring. He jerked the keys back rapidly as if he still wasn’t completely convinced that this wasn’t some kind of trap. It really wasn’t, though, and Calum felt his heart shatter a little more as the keys clattered loudly in Ashton’s shaking grip.

“Go on,” urged Ashley. “Get in out of the cold. Leave the door unlocked for Cal, okay? He’s going to take you home where you can take a nice shower and get in some clothes that actually fit you.”

Meek, Ashton nodded his head. He obliged Ashley’s command as if it didn’t occur to him that he shouldn’t. He walked over to the passenger’s side door, pressed the unlock button twice on the key fob, and climbed inside of the cab. The moment the door was shut, the car roared to life. Ashton sat stiffly, facing forward, in the passenger’s seat.

Calum turned to Ashley.

“Care to explain what the hell is going on?”

Ashley glanced over her shoulder at Ashton, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I don’t know,” she said with a heavy sigh. Worry lines appeared on her face as cracks in her earlier façade. “Josh called me from the store and said Ashton was there. Said he looked like a mess. So far, Ashton hasn’t told me anything. Just that he didn’t know where else to go. Maybe you’ll be able to get more out of him than I did.”

“Maybe—or Michael probably can,” said Calum.

He had to keep his attention on Ashley, because looking at the back of Ashton’s head through the car window only made Calum’s heart break even more. Calum had lived through some pretty awful things in his life, Zayn being at the top of that list. Calum knew what it felt like to be powerless—what it felt like to be hopeless. Never before had Calum felt as _helpless_ as he did right now faced with an Ashton who had shied away from him.

“He just needs to know that he isn’t alone,” said Ashley. Calum’s helplessness much have been evident on his face. “Remind him of that, and remind him that he is loved, and I think that’s a good start.”

“Thanks,” said Calum, because he appreciated the advice. “Tell Josh thanks, too, for me, would you?”

“Of course,” agreed Ashley. “Ashton is our friend, too. Whatever happened, we’re all here for him.”

“I should probably get him home. Michael is there. If there is anything that will make Ashton feel even the slightest bit better, it’s Mike.”

“Josh and I will drop Ashton’s car off tonight after Josh gets off work,” said Ashley, drawing Calum in for a quick hug. “Take care of him.”

Calum promised her to do just that, though, really, he would have done so even without such a request. Ashton was his best friend. Calum would do everything in his power to figure out what had happened and to fix it. That is what Ashton had done for him. That was what Calum owed to Ashton, too.

Climbing into the vehicle, the interior of the car was already toasty warm from the heater. Ashton huddled farther against the passenger’s side door as if he were trying to create as much space as possible between Calum and himself. Calum sucked in a ragged breath, knots tightening in his chest. All he wanted to do right now was hug Ashton and make him feel better, but he knew a hug—or any type of physical contact—was the last thing Ashton wanted right now. Calum settled for buckling his seat belt and pulling out of the parking spot.

“Want to talk about it?” asked Calum.

When Ashton glanced over at Calum in acknowledgement of the question and shook his head precisely two times, Calum wasn’t surprised. In the next second, though, Ashton’s eyes widened in fear, as if saying no was the worst possible thing in the entire world. It was as if he expected Calum to be _mad_.

Calum bit his lips together. The knots in his chest tightened until he felt like he could hardly draw air into his lungs. He forced a smile that he hoped was reassuring, and he switched the radio dial over to Ashton’s favorite station. He settled in to finish the drive.

When they arrived back at their apartment building and stood outside of Ashton’s apartment, Calum realized the flaw in the plan. Ashley had Ashton’s car keys, which meant she also had his key to his apartment. Locked out, Ashton couldn’t exactly go home, but Calum felt a spike of relief at the realization. He wasn’t comfortable with Ashton going home to an empty apartment, even if Liam would be back from work shortly. Now, Calum had a valid excuse to convince Ashton to stay the night at Michael and Calum’s apartment without risking the chance of Ashton choosing solidarity.

Ashton didn’t need to be alone right now. Calum might not have known exactly what it was that had happened to create the shell of a man that was currently Ashton, but Calum knew better than to leave Ashton on his own. Ashton needed to be surrounded by his best friends—by the people who loved him—because only love could conquer the fear that glinted in Ashton’s dulled eyes.

Michael was in the living room when Calum let himself and Ashton inside of the apartment. Calum was careful to keep a respectable amount of distance between them. He took off his heavy winter jacket, but Ashton left his hoodie on. It wasn’t nearly enough to have kept him warm outside, and, in here, it wouldn’t overheat him. Calum didn’t try to convince him to take it off.

Instead, Calum reached for the lock on the door. He noticed then how Ashton carefully eyed his every movement. Calum froze. Everything about Ashton screamed fear right now. Calum let his hand fall back to his side. He blinked back the tears that were threatening to spring to his eyes as his heart broke even more.

“Would you like to lock the door?” asked Calum.

He remembered how, in the first few months after Zayn, he had never felt safe unless he knew for himself that the door was locked and that there was no way that Zayn could get to him. He didn’t know if Ashton shared that same fear—if that was why Ashton was watching Calum’s every move—but he would do anything to make it go away. He would do anything to make Ashton feel safe.

Calum stepped out of Ashton’s way so that Ashton could have an unblocked path to the door. Calum headed toward the living room where Michael was lounged across the couch with a controller in hand. He wished he had thought to send Michael a text message ahead of time to warn him about Ashton. Between Ashley showing up with Ashton in two and Calum driving here, though, he hadn’t had a chance.

“I ordered pizza,” said Michael. His eyes were glued to the television screen where he was decimating a monster-like enemy. “Got pineapple and pepperoni.”

“Hope you ordered enough for three,” said Calum. He was facing Michael in the living room, but, from his place on the outskirt of the kitchen, he could see Ashton inch toward the door and flip the lock. “I brought home a stray.”

Michael glanced at Calum, his eyebrows raised, as a cut scene played on the television screen. Calum tried for a smile, but he knew it fell flat on his lips. It was hard to smile when he thought about the state that Ashton was in.

Calum and Michael had been friends for years. They had grown up together. They had lived in each other’s pockets forever, with the tiny exception of a year. Michael could, therefore, read Calum like a book, and he frowned at Calum’s attempt to smile.

He never got a chance to call Calum on it, though, because, in the next second, Ashton appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and immediately usurped Michael’s attention. Michael’s lips started to quirk upwards in that smile he always got whenever Ashton was around, but, just like Calum’s earlier had, it fell into nothingness. Michael let out a gasp that sounded like pure devastation. His face showed the same horror that Calum himself felt. He sat up straight on the edge of the couch, his controller falling carelessly to the floor even as a battle started up on the television screen.

Ashton retreated farther into himself in the face of Michael’s reaction, as if he had only been functioning as well as he had with the promise of seeing Michael. Calum wanted to slap Michael for such a thoughtless reaction, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame Michael for it. Ashton looked liked the humanization of a heartbreak at this moment in time, like a ghost of the happy person he had always been, and like all of Michael’s worst fears rolled into one.

“Oh my god, Ashton. I want to—can I _hug_ you?” asked Michael, his words running together in his haste. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. He sounded it, too. He probably had a thousand questions, just like Calum did, about what had happened, but all he wanted was to hold Ashton right now. “ _Please_.”

At first, Ashton didn’t move. He stood stock-still, his shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped around himself. Michael repeated his _please_ one more time, and that is all it took for Ashton to break. For Ashton to stumble his way into Michael’s outstretched arms. For Ashton to fold himself into Michael’s hold and let Michael whisper nonsense words of comfort and love right into Ashton’s ear.

Michael met Calum’s eyes over the top of Ashton’s dirty hair, and Michael’s gaze reflected the same helplessness that was coursing through Calum’s veins. Calum wished he knew what to say or even how to comfort Michael, since it was clear that he didn’t have a clue how to deal with Ashton. He didn’t know how to handle Michael, either, so Calum didn’t say a word.

Even if he had, though, it wouldn’t have mattered. A knock at the door echoed inside of the tiny apartment. Ashton flinched in Michael’s arms, and Michael tightened his hold on Ashton in return.

“It’s just the pizza I ordered,” murmured Michael, partially to comfort Ashton and partially to hint to Calum to take money to the door when he answered it.

Ashton seemed to calm down slightly in Michael’s arms. Calum knew Michael had everything under control—that there was nothing better Calum could do for Ashton than Michael could—so Calum faded from the living room. He withdrew his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans as he headed for the door.

Just before he opened it, he remembered that Luke was on shift. Calum grinned in anticipation. He flipped the lock on the door before he threw it open, already armed with a cheeky greeting. He didn’t give it.

“Hi. Delivery for Michael Clifford?”

Calum froze in the doorway, tightening his grip on the door handle. It wasn’t Luke standing in front of him with two pizza boxes. It was, instead, Tyler. A horrible realization struck Calum like a freight train speeding wildly down a set of tracks: he had broken his standing date with Luke at the pizza place after he had explicitly promised Luke that he would not.

Tyler shifted the pizza boxes in his hand, and the movement knocked Calum out of his stupor. Robotically, Calum offered the money and received the pizzas in return, just as such a transaction was supposed to occur. Tyler offered him the standard departing farewell as he turned to leave. He was halfway down the hall before Calum found his voice.

“Where’s Luke?”

Tyler stopped instantly, half-turning around so that he could look at Calum. The hallway lighting was too dark for Calum to read the expression written across his face. Tyler’s voice floated easily across the distance that separated them.

“Boss sent him home early. He was, uh... just not... well—he burned like three pizzas.”

It looked like, maybe, Tyler wanted to say more, but Calum wasn’t sure he wanted to hear whatever it was. Calum thanked Tyler for the pizzas once more then stepped back inside of his apartment. He made sure to flip the lock as loudly as he could, hoping that Ashton could hear it in the other room. He fell back against the door once it was locked. He sucked in a shaky breath. He had failed two people that he loved today.


	6. Faded

Ashton stayed in their apartment that night, sharing a bed with Michael, much like many, many nights prior. He stayed every night that week and, when the next week dawned, he stayed then, too. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, except that, occasionally, Calum would wake up in the middle of the night to find Ashton sitting by himself at the kitchen table with a glass of milk half-drunk in front of him. When Calum would ask him what he was doing up, Ashton would glance up at him, startled, and, after a long pause, would mutter something about not being able to fall asleep. It was strange. Ashton never, ever had trouble sleeping when he was curled up around Michael.

But, each and every time, as Calum corralled Ashton back to bed, where Michael was snoring softly, Calum could never find the courage to ask exactly why Ashton was having trouble sleeping despite Michael’s presence.

The hyped fall festival began with a bang on Saturday, but Calum was working at the store and couldn’t attend. Liam, Michael, and Ashton did go, though. They brought back Calum a bag of cotton candy as consolation. It was a nice gesture, except Michael devoured half of the bag before he gifted it to Calum. He was at least semi-apologetic about it, so, somehow, Michael insisted his nicety still counted.

Calum stopped by the pizza place every day as he left campus, but he never ran into Luke. He didn’t see Luke at the university, either. It was almost as if Luke was avoiding him. Calum almost couldn’t blame him, per se. He had promised Luke that he would meet Luke for dinner and he hadn’t. It was well within Luke’s right to be mad at Calum or, at the very least, disappointed.

Missing Luke, though, hurt Calum a little more than he had anticipated. It was a scary kind of hurt. This hurt made it obvious to Calum how much he had grown to depend on Luke’s companionship in the short amount of time they had known each other. Calum hadn’t given anybody such power over him since Zayn, because a tiny voice in the back of his mind always whispered to him that if Zayn could abuse this power, anybody would.

It was easy to ignore this voice when Calum thought about Luke. Maybe it was the way Luke smiled at him like he was the only one in the room. Or maybe it was the way that Luke never pried into Calum’s dark past even though Calum had given him ample opportunity to do so. Calum liked that about Luke. He liked how Luke understood how difficult it was for Calum to talk about the bad things in his past and how Luke didn’t have to know everything there was to know about Calum to want to be his friend.

By Wednesday, Tyler finally took pity upon Calum when he entered the pizza place. It had become part of Calum’s routine to stop by Luke’s work, and he did it instinctively now. As Calum stepped through the door with a hopeful expression on his face, Tyler leaned across the counter to speak in a low voice to him without giving Calum a chance to even pretend like he was there for any reason other than to speak with Luke.

“He took his break in the back. I think he’s in his car.”

Calum breathed out a sigh of relief, grinning automatically. He graciously thanked Tyler before pivoting around and exiting the restaurant. He nearly plowed over a couple of incoming customers, but he threw a quick apology over his shoulder as he jogged toward the employee parking lot. 

When he turned the corner, he spotted an old blue car parked next to the backdoor. In the driver’s seat was Luke, who had yet to spot Calum, so, before Calum could second guess himself, he used this to his advantage. He quickly circled the car and climbed into the passenger’s seat, throwing his hands up in surrender before Luke even had a chance to glance up at him.

Luke’s response was immediate. He yelped, the sound echoing in the cab. His entire body went rigid, and his eyes widened in fear before recognition flashed across his face. Even when he did realize that it was only Calum who was the intruder, the fear remained behind as in his eyes, though, after a long span of seconds, it morphed into something akin to hurt.

Calum’s heart lurched in his chest. He stumbled over his own tongue in his haste to apologize, so his words came out unintelligibly the first time he tried them. He had to force himself to stop and take a deep breath to soothe his own nerves. All the while, Luke looked as though he was a good second away from bolting from his own car.

“I’m sorry,” said Calum, finally. It wasn’t enough of an apology for breaking his promise to Luke, but it was all that he could manage for now with his racing, jumbled thoughts. “I’m really sorry.”

Luke blinked owlishly at him, obviously caught off guard by Calum’s immediate and unsolicited apology. Calum grimaced. He could have started with a better opening, but he was so nervous that he would forget the most important part—that he would forget the fact that he needed to apologize to Luke—if he didn’t say that first.

He sighed. He had prepared an entire speech for this moment, but, now that he and Luke were face-to-face, he couldn’t remember a single thing he wanted to say. He gave it his best shot anyway. It was the least Luke deserved.

“About totally ditching you for dinner the other day,” said Calum in an attempt to clarify his apology. “There was, um… I mean—Ashton was, uh—I dunno. Something pretty bad happened, I think, but he won’t talk about it, and I’m too afraid to ask, but, basically, that’s what I was doing that evening. I was, uh, getting him home to Michael, because Ashton loves Michael—even if he won’t admit it—and—I mean— _fuck_. This is going all kinds of wrong right now.”

Calum broke off, feeling more and more flustered with every jagged word he tripped over himself to say. He took a deep, calming breath. Luke made him so nervous, because Luke had been nothing less than a spectacular friend to Calum since they met. He even laughed at all of Calum’s horrible jokes, and not even Michael was kind enough to do that. Luke was perfect. He made Calum’s heart skip a beat in his chest when he smiled, and it was all too easy for Calum to fall for him.

The problem, though, was that Calum was an utter fuck-up of a human being. He was weak. He had let Zayn trample all over him even when he knew that Zayn’s love was wrong. Nobody loved somebody with cruel words and painful grips.

Calum tried to be strong. He tried to hold to his promises after he had broken so, so many at Zayn’s request, and, though Luke didn’t know about the strings of empty words Calum spouted off time and time again, Calum didn’t want Luke to think so awfully of him to believe Calum to be unreliable. Calum wanted to be a good friend to Luke. He did, even if blowing off their plans suggested otherwise.

“Can I, uh, give that another shot?” asked Calum, still flustered.

“Of course,” said Luke with a small, almost amused smile.

Calum liked this about Luke. He liked how patient Luke was with him and how Luke acted as if he had all of the time in the world for Calum. It wasn’t a nicety Calum felt he deserved, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

As Calum took a moment to sort through his tangled thoughts, he took in Luke before him. Luke looked tired, almost to the point of exhaustion, but it seemed to settle across Luke’s face as if it were an old companion, as if Luke was always tired for some reason. Then again, that was probably the norm for all college students, especially those who held a job on top of their classes.

The bruise surrounding Luke’s eye had healed considerably since the last time Calum had seen him. It was now an ugly yellow color that almost blended into his skin. It would be an easy thing to miss if Calum hadn’t seen the bruise in its purple glory.

“Something, uh, happened with—to Ashton,” said Calum, finally. He didn’t really know how to explain Ashton’s situation any better, because he didn’t understand it, but he did owe Luke as much of an explanation as he could manage to give. “I don’t—I don’t know exactly what, but Ashley—she’s a, uh, good friend of ours—she told me to take him home, and he was in such a state that he couldn’t very well drive himself there, so I did, and I totally forgot that I was supposed to meet you for dinner. I’m so sorry.”

Luke shrugged, offering Calum another small smile. This one wasn’t stained with amusement like the last one had been, but Calum’s heart did a flip in his chest anyway. He had missed Luke so, so much. It had only been a few days, but, somehow, it felt like a lifetime, and somewhere deep inside of Calum, this—how dependent he had become on Luke in such a short amount of time—scared him. It did, but it was almost too easy to push away that fear for the time being while Luke smiled at him.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not like it was a standing date or anything,” said Luke, going for nonchalance but missing it by a mile. His voice was thin and airy. His words ran together as if he were vomiting them up as quickly as he could. “I completely overreacted.”

Calum grimaced at the self-depreciative timbre of Luke’s voice. He reached across the console to lay his hand on Luke’s arm, wrapping his fingers one-by-one around Luke’s bicep and soaking up the heat that radiated through the thick fabric of Luke’s sweatshirt. For the first time in a week, Calum breathed a little easier.

“You didn’t,” Calum told him with certainty. “I mean, it sort of was a standing date, wasn’t it? ‘Cause I told you I’d meet up with you for dinner, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“If I say I accept your apology, can we put this whole thing behind us?” asked Luke.

“Only if you promise to come over to my apartment tonight and let me make it up to you,” propositioned Calum, and the moment the words left his mouth he cringed. Blood rushed to his cheeks, his skin darkening in a blush. He hadn’t meant to sound so explicitly forward. “I mean, uh, we’re marathoning some scary movies, me and Michael and Ashton, to get into the Halloween spirit. You should join us.”

 Luke laughed, either missing or choosing to ignore the underlying innuendo of Calum’s first statement. Calum appreciated the gesture, as he didn’t think his blush could get any darker than it currently was. He would prefer not to find out, especially because, while the butterflies that Luke brought to his stomach were welcomed, he was still hesitant to fall completely head over heels in love with Luke—to lose himself to another person like he had with Zayn.

“Sounds like a good trade-off, I suppose,” agreed Luke, “but I don’t get off until closing tonight. If it’s not too late, I can bring pizza.”

“You know nobody is going to turn down pizza—especially Mike,” said Calum, grinning over at Luke. “Besides, it’s never too late for you to stop by.”

Luke smiled back at him, obviously pleased by Calum’s words. His smile was so blinding that it made Calum’s heart skip a beat in his chest. Calum had to look away for fear of doing something reckless like kissing that smile right off Luke’s lips—just to see if it tasted as good as it looked. The very idea of locking lips with Luke simultaneously made Calum’s heart flip and his stomach drop. Calum was doubtlessly falling in love with Luke, that much was true, but there was still a very large part of Calum that was terrified by the idea of love, regardless of how much Luke made him want to throw all caution to the wind and jump headfirst right into it.

_Tiny steps_ , Calum reminded himself. He and Luke were brand new friends, and the future stretched seemingly endless in front of them. One day, Calum would muster up enough courage to tell Luke about the horrors of his past, about falling in love with a monster, and about nearly losing himself to eternal darkness. Maybe one day beyond that, Calum might muster up even more courage to take a chance and press his lips against Luke’s, and maybe even one day beyond that, Calum might even stop cowering away at the mere idea of all-encompassing love. Until then, he would settle with being Luke’s friend.

For now, Calum pushed away all thoughts of tomorrow and took a look around at his surroundings, which he hadn’t done when he had initially launched straight into his apology. There were a couple of paper cups from fast food restaurants carefully stacked on top each other in the floorboard at his feet. The toe of a well-worn tennis shoe stuck out from underneath the passenger’s seat, and a can of deodorant was squashed in the crack next to the console.

What stole Calum’s attention away from everything else, though, was a tiny photograph taped to the dash next to the radio. Its colors were slightly faded from the numerous hours it had been exposed to the sun, but it was still in decent enough shape to distinguish the people in it. Calum recognized an adolescent Luke, who was probably around eight or nine years old. He stood posed in front of an old white house. Two unfamiliar blond headed older boys, who looked so similar to Luke that they had to have been family, stood on either side of him.

“They’re my brothers,” supplied Luke when he realized Calum was staring at the photograph. Calum looked over at him, eager to hear more, but his smile slipped when he noticed the sad set of Luke’s shoulders. “ _Were_ my brothers. They died when I was thirteen—car accident.”

Calum didn’t know what to say other than, “I’m sorry,” and even that was inadequate. Perhaps there was nothing adequate enough for Calum to have said. The loss of a family member was beyond words, but the loss of two at once was even more indescribable. Calum regretted his curiosity.

“It was a long time ago,” said Luke, trying for a smile that fell flat on his lips. Calum admired the effort. Luke held Calum’s gaze for a fraction of a second before he dropped it to the clock displayed on the radio. “I should, uh, head back in. My break’s almost up.”

“Of course,” said Calum, reaching for the door handle. “You’ll be by the apartment later, right?”

This time, when Luke met Calum’s eyes, the blinding smile was back. It was infectious, so Calum grinned, too. Calum wished time would stop right in its tracks so that he would never, ever lose this smile right here, because smiles like this lit up Calum’s entire world—scary or not.

But Calum wasn’t ready to profess this out loud, never mind the fact that his budding romantic feelings might be unrequited. He and Luke were friends for now. He was fine with that—happy with that—and he wasn’t yet ready to embark again in the brutal territory that was love. Zayn had nearly killed him, and though Luke was not Zayn, Calum wasn’t ready to let go of his reservations.

“With pizza,” promised Luke.

Calum laughed. Together, they got out of Luke’s car. The air was chilly, so Calum did up the zip on his leather jacket. Luke shivered in his sweatshirt, and Calum thought about offering up his jacket, but it would be pointless. Luke was heading inside to the kitchen of the restaurant where the pizza ovens would surely warm him back up.

Still, it was too cold for either of them to tarry too long outside. Calum bade Luke goodbye, and they parted ways. Calum headed for his own car parked in the front lot as Luke ambled toward the back door of the restaurant. It was an employee’s only exit that required a keycard to access it, which, of course, Luke had.

It was only when the door closed behind Luke, locking him inside the warm restaurant, that Calum realized he had stopped mid-step to watch Luke walk away from him. Calum snorted to himself. If somebody would have told him even two months ago that he would be so wrapped up in another person that he would do something as embarrassingly cheesy as this—as stand in the freezing cold with hearts in his eyes—he would have laughed in their face.

As it was now, after Calum had met and befriended Luke, he just smiled at himself as he headed for his car. He was finished with his classes for the day, but he had promised Michael that he would pick him up from campus, so he drove back there. He needed to print out his essay for class tomorrow anyway. He could do that while Michael finished up.

The library was crowded, as it always was in the evenings right after dinnertime, but Calum found a computer easily enough. It took ages to boot up. The computers in the particular row he was seated at were the older models that would be phased out within the next couple of years. It pulled up his document on the first try, though, so Calum couldn’t complain too much. After he clicked print, he logged out of the system.

He went to retrieve his printed essay in the tiny side room attached to the main library, where another student was currently collecting a slew of papers out of the tray. Calum’s essay was the next thing to print. He stepped out of the doorway to let the other student pass. The printer spit out the four pages it was supposed to, so Calum collected them and reached for the stapler. He skimmed over the text to make sure that it had printed properly—as he had had a few bad experiences using the library’s equipment over the years—and, thankfully, everything seemed to be in the right place.

Satisfied with his essay, Calum turned to leave and froze. His eyes widened, and his heart stuttered in his chest. His entire body went rigid. The air seemed to think when Calum gasped for his next breath.

Standing in front of him, as if he had all of the reason in the world to be there, was Zayn. To his credit, Zayn at least tried to mimic surprise—cocking his head to the side as if the whole set up was anything but what he had expected or, rather, what he had masterminded. The smirk that ghosted across his lips betrayed him, belying his motives. He had followed Calum in here.

“How have you been?” asked Zayn, his voice was silky with false sincerity.

He had strategically placed himself right in front of the door, blocking Calum in. Calum’s mind flashed back to the many times they had been in a similar situation when the doorway Zayn had stood in front of was the one to the bedroom of Zayn’s oppressively cold apartment. It was Zayn’s favorite tactic. It had worked well back then. A cold chill of fear chased across Calum’s skin. It was working well now, too.

“Fine—though I have to admit I was doing much better before I ran into you,” said Calum with as much bravado as he could manage. It wasn’t much, but anything was better than nothing. Anything was better than the cowering shell of a human being Zayn used to be able to reduce Calum to.

Calum had to remind himself that this set up was much different than the power play Zayn had possessed in the past. The wall that separated the side room from the main library was made of glass, so Calum was in plain view of the other students. Zayn could not do anything to him. Logically, Calum knew this, but that did not stop the involuntary shiver of fear that ran down his spine. If Zayn so chose, it would not take him too long to hurt Calum—probably less time than it would take anybody else to even notice something had happened. Calum knew this from experience.

“I don’t understand why you’re being so hostile,” said Zayn, furrowing his eyebrows as if in genuine confusion. Zayn had always been a good actor. “I’m just making small talk.”

Calum rolled his eyes. Zayn was not one who ever made small talk. There was always an ulterior motive to everything he did. Calum knew Zayn’s nice phase would only last for so long—until he got Calum to where he could overpower him once more—but Calum had no desire to stick around long enough for that end to come.

“Look, I’ve already told you that I don’t want anything to do with you, so why don’t you just leave me alone?” demanded Calum.

In a split second of dumb bravery, he crossed the tiny room in large, determined steps. He was going to leave this room whether Zayn liked it or not. When he reached the doorway that Zayn still blocked, Calum threw a sharp elbow right into Zayn’s side. Pain radiated up Calum’s arm, but he refused to let any weakness show through his brave façade.

Zayn, for his part, barely reacted to Calum’s jab. It was like trying to move a cement wall. Calum was really no match for the might of Zayn—for the sick determination that fuelled Zayn’s obsession. Calum never had been.

“I’m not going to give up,” murmured Zayn. His breath puffed in Calum’s ear like it used to do when they were intimate. His lips twisted back into a smile, resolve glinting in his dark eyes. “I will make you forgive me, Calum.”

Then he stepped aside as if he were allowing a dear friend to pass. Calum’s bravado slipped from his grasp. There was nothing left to do except glare at Zayn, so he did, and then he stalk away as fast as his feet would carry him. He blew through the library, desperate to put as much space in between him and Zayn as he could.

Outside on the quad, he spotted Michael among the students filing out of the science building. The timing was impeccable. Calum rushed over to Michael, because Michael was safe. Michael would protect him. Michael had done so before.

Michael looked over at Calum as he approached, a friendly greeting dying on his lips at the wild expression on Calum’s face. Michael opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but Calum shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. Not here. Not now. He looped his arm through Michael’s in lieu of an explanation and dragged him toward the parking lot at a rapid pace.

Curious, Michael glanced over his shoulder in the direction from which Calum had come. He gasped when he spotted Zayn standing by the front door of the library watching the pair of them scuttle away. Michael turned back around so that he could watch where he stepped. He muttered a string of his favorite curses.

“It isn’t the first time I’ve run into him,” said Calum before Michael could say anything beyond the four-lettered words. They descended a flight of stairs, and the library finally disappeared behind them. Calum slowed up their pace. “He’s trying to be nice.”

Michael snorted.

“There isn’t a nice bone in his body,” he spat. “Fucking bastard.”

“Yeah, well, can we talk about something else?” asked Calum. His nerves were frayed. His heart was pounding in his chest. He felt like he always did after he woke up from nightmares, only this time it hadn’t been a dream: he had run into Zayn in real life.

Michael, ever a good friend, didn’t argue against the subject change. He understood the fear that ran rampant through Calum. He had been there when it was brand new. Now, months later, it was still there, though to a lesser extent.

“Did you finally track Luke down and make up with him?” asked Michael, as the pair of them climbed into Calum’s car. Luke was a much more welcomed topic of conversation than Zayn. “You’ve spent entirely too long moping around the apartment.”

“I haven’t been moping,” muttered Calum, and when Michael rolled his eyes, Calum reached across the console and flicked his ear as retribution. “And yeah, I caught him on his break earlier. I invited him over. I hope that’s okay. He’s bringing pizza.”

“In what universe would I turn down free pizza?” asked Michael, chuckling. “Seriously, Cal, you’ve got to stop selling him to me. I like Luke, and so does Ashton. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, you could invite him to live on our couch, and I’d be all up for it.”

It was Calum’s turn to roll his eyes. He put the key in the car’s ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life. Calum glanced over at Michael.

“The apartment’s crowded enough now as it is, isn’t it?” he asked, joking, but as soon as he realized the punch line, he regretted it. “Sorry, that was crude, and I didn’t mean to imply that Ashton isn’t welcome, because, well, he’s my best friend, isn’t he? After you, of course, and I’m the one who brought him home, so, of course, I’m happy with him staying there. I just mean—”

“That you’re salty with Ash for using up all of the hot water before you got a shower yesterday?” teased Michael in an effort to soothe over Calum’s accidental foot-in-mouth joke.

The impish grin on Michael’s face suggested he knew Calum didn’t have any hard feelings whatsoever with Ashton staying in their apartment despite his own being right next door. Sometimes, being friends with someone for as long as Calum and Michael had been had its perks. Michael understood Calum in ways that hardly anybody else did.

“Yeah, something like that,” mumbled Calum. He put his car in drive and pulled through the parking space in front of him, too lazy to back up. “You haven’t, uh, asked him what happened, have you?”

Michael sighed, the grin leaving his face. He shook his head, though Calum didn’t see him, since Calum was turning out onto the main street. The sigh in itself was enough of an indication of Michael’s response.

“No,” said Michael a moment later, confirming what Calum already expected. “I don’t really know what to say, you know? Like, he’s so… _scared_ , and Ashton is never, ever scared of anything. It’s—it’s disconcerting. I don’t want to, like, fuck up and say the wrong thing and make him even more scared.”

“I highly doubt you could ever fuck up as far as Ashton is concerned,” said Calum. They were at a stoplight now, so he took the opportunity to glance over and meet Michael’s eyes in the few seconds before the light turned green. “Ashton thinks you hung the moon.”

Michael smiled self-consciously and immediately ducked his head out of Calum’s sight like the smile itself was a complete accident. Calum didn’t know why Michael was so bashful when it came to facing how Ashton acted around him. Michael was as head over heels in love with Ashton as Ashton was with him—it was just that, between the two of them, neither one had yet dared to take that terrifying first step in admitting how they felt even though it was obvious to the entire world that neither had anything to be afraid of.

“Sometimes, I think I love Ashton so much I can hardly breathe, and, sometimes, when we’re lying on opposite sides of the bed with miles of space between us, I can’t sleep, because he is right there, but he is so, so scared, and I am helpless to help him. I’d rip my beating heart out for him, Cal. I’d do it in a heartbeat if that would fix whatever the hell happened, and I wouldn’t think twice about it. I can’t— _fuck_.”

“Mike—”

“I don’t know how to make him better, and I don’t know how to not make it worse, and I don’t know which is more terrible,” said Michael, throwing up his arms as if signaling defeat.

Calum had never, ever heard Michael sound so… hopeless in his entire life. Calum’s heart ached. He didn’t know what to tell Michael just like he didn’t know what to say to Ashton. It was one bad thing after another, it seemed, and sooner or later, something was going to give. Calum hoped beyond all hopes that the thing to give wouldn’t be _MichaelandAshton_.

“He stays in your room, because you make him feel safe,” says Calum. If he doesn’t know how to help Michael, he can at least point out all of the ways that Michael is helping Ashton. “You may feel like you don’t know what you’re doing—and, if it helps, I don’t really know what I’m doing, either—but you’re helping him so, so much by just being _you_.”

“Maybe,” said Michael, though the tone of his voice suggested that he didn’t agree with Calum. “The last thing he needs, though, is me shoving my feelings down his throat.”

“Even though he feels the same?”

“Even though he _might_ feel the same,” corrected Michael. He turned his face away from Calum, using the guise of looking out of his window in an attempt to hide the frown on his lips. It was a pointless endeavor. The defeated slump of his shoulders belied his sadness. “All I want is for Ashton to be happy and not scared anymore. I want that for him, not for me, and I don’t need to fuck everything up with my feelings.”

Calum sighed, but he knew this wasn’t an argument he was going to win. He had to admit that Michael was right to an extent: feelings tended to complicate even the simplest of things. Whatever was going on with Ashton—whatever had happened—was obviously far from simple, and, at the end of the day, Ashton’s wellbeing needed to come first. Everything else could come later.

So Calum said nothing to dispute Michael. They finished the drive in relative silence that was only broken up by the music playing low on the radio. Calum parked his car in his assigned spot. Together, he and Michael headed inside of their apartment building. When they reached their apartment, Calum let Michael inside before him and then made sure to flip the lock as loudly as possible.

Behind Calum, Michael gasped. It echoed in the quiet apartment, bouncing off the walls and grating across Calum’s nerves. Calum spun around on his heel to face the kitchen, and his heart plummeted straight to the floor. His chest tightened in knots as the sight with which he was met.  

Ashton sat at the kitchen table before them. He wore one of Michael’s old band t-shirts and the pair of sweats that Michael had lounged around in this morning. There was a bowl of untouched, mushy cereal in front of him. He held a spoon slack in his hand. A tiny puddle of milk had dried underneath it.

Ashton didn’t appear to have even noticed Michael and Calum’s entrance. His eyes were locked on the morning newspaper that was unfolded before him. The headlines covered the recent crime in the lower districts and praised the local spa and resort owners for their contribution to the city. Calum had read the articles over his morning coffee. They were nothing too intriguing—certainly not world-stopping—but Calum highly doubted that they had anything to do with Ashton’s catatonic state, as Ashton didn’t seem to be paying them any attention either.

Michael stood frozen, staring at Ashton in helpless horror. It was up to Calum to step up and take charge of the situation. He didn’t have a clue what to do, but he figured Ashton would be more comfortable curled up on the couch with Michael than he currently was seated on the hard kitchen chair.

“C’mon, Ashton. Let’s get that cleaned up,” said Calum.

Ashton didn’t even react. Calum chewed on his bottom lip, glancing over at Michael, but Michael was still staring wide-eyed at Ashton. Calum drew in a deep breath before he stepped forward toward Ashton. He made sure to exaggerate every single step he took in an attempt to maybe not startle Ashton, who had yet to acknowledge either his or Michael’s presence.

Once Calum was within reach, he paused. Still, Ashton sat motionless, staring unseeingly at the newspaper on the table in front of him. Very, very carefully, Calum reached forward to grab the bowl. Ashton’s free hand clenched into a fist. It was the only indication he even knew Calum was so close, but even so, it was less of a threatening gesture and more of a natural fearful reaction. Calum’s aching heart skipped a beat in his chest. He almost abandoned his entire plight, but nobody in the entire world made Ashton feel safe and loved like Michael did.

Calum reached for the spoon next, intent on cleaning up the mess Ashton had made, but Ashton jerked back his hand.

“No.”

Calum blinked, startled, and glanced up to meet Ashton’s eyes. They were wild, but Calum wasn’t entirely sure Ashton was seeing him. There was no flare of recognition that normally rose in Ashton’s fearful eyes whenever he realized it was only Calum. There was nothing. It was as if Ashton’s mind was a thousand miles away from this moment in time—as if Ashton’s mind was trapped in the unknown hell that had broken him.

Ashton’s entire body was poised to attack or maybe to run. Calum knew he had to act fast before Ashton gave in to one of those options. Calum reached for the spoon, this time to merely relieve Ashton of the object, but Ashton growled, deep and threatening in his throat. In the next instant, he shoved Calum away from him with as much force as he could muster.

Calum staggered backward, nearly toppling to the floor. The mushy cereal splashed over the rim of the bowl and clung to the back of his hand. The room temperature milk dripped down his wrist. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but that was the last thing on Calum’s mind.

Ashton jumped to his feet, drawing himself to his full height for the first time in nearly a week. He glared at Calum before him as if Calum were the human embodiment of all things bad in the entire world—as if Calum were his sworn enemy and not his best friend. Calum’s heart shattered in his chest. He took a step back from Ashton’s fury.

“I said no!” bellowed Ashton. Spit flew from his mouth. “No means no, and I _can_ say that, and you _will_ listen!”

Calum’s heart shattered in his chest. He knew he needed to do something to comfort Ashton who was falling apart right in front of him, but, like Michael earlier, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t function beyond one single thought running on loop through his mind: _Who in the hell could be so evil to destroy someone as strong and as good as Ashton?_

“Ash,” said Michael from his spot next to the door.

It was more than a breath. It was certainly quieter than Ashton’s outburst, but Ashton froze upon hearing his name fall from Michael’s lips. As quickly as the fight came, it left. The spoon fell from Ashton’s grasp and clattered to the floor. Ashton’s wild eyes turned to meet Michael’s gaze. He crumbled right before Michael and Calum, stumbling back into his chair.  

“I said no,” muttered Ashton, defeated in the way a man is only when he has nothing left. “I did. I said no.”

“Of course, you did,” said Michael, even though he had no context for exactly what Ashton had said no to. That didn’t matter. He had his awful, horrible suspicions, but even without those, Ashton needed his support. Ashton needed _him_. “I’m so sorry that they didn’t listen, but Cal and I will, okay? We’re your best friends. We won’t ever hurt you.”

Ashton looked like he wanted to cry. His lower lip wobbled, and his forehead crinkled up, and he looked so lost all by himself on the other side of the table. He drew in a trembling breath, looking from Calum to Michael as he processed Michael’s promise.

“Mikey,” he breathed, and that was all it took for Michael to cross the kitchen to him.

Michael stopped before he was even within reaching distance. He didn’t dare come any closer just yet. Ashton stared fearfully up at him, but the terrified glint in Ashton’s wild eyes was diminishing by the second.

“Can I hug you?” asked Michael. It was a familiar question. It was a familiar formula. Ashton liked it when people asked for his permission. “I want to hug you, but you can tell me no, and I swear I won’t.”

“Please,” said Ashton, nodding his head. “Please, Mikey.”

So Michael did. He stepped forward ever-so-carefully and spread his arms as wide as he could. Even now, he gave Ashton the chance to change his mind. Ashton didn’t. When it came to Michael, he never did. Ashton slowly stood up from the chair once more, staring at Michael the entire time as if he feared Michael would retract his offer. Michael didn’t. He just smiled at Ashton, trying to show Ashton how safe and loved Ashton was without having to say the words. Ashton understood. He crossed the last of the small distance between them and buried his head in the crook of Michael’s neck.

Immediately, Michael’s arms wrapped around Ashton and pulled him even closer. Ashton melted in Michael’s embrace, and Michael held him tighter. This was where Ashton belonged safe and sound and loved. This was where Ashton could start to heal as Michael did his damnedest to chase away all of the ugly fears that somebody else had instilled into Ashton’s pure heart.


	7. Control

As promised, Luke showed up at the door a little past eight o’clock that evening. He came armed with a grin on his face and a couple of boxes of pizzas in his hands. He had changed out of his work uniform and was instead wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a black and white striped sweatshirt.

Calum’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of Luke. A blush rushed across his cheeks, and he ducked his head in an effort to hide it as he let Luke inside of the apartment. He shut the door behind Luke, making sure to flip the lock with a resounding _click!_ so that Ashton would hear it in the next room.

“Tyler’s parading around like person of the year,” said Luke, glancing over his shoulder at Calum. He rolled his eyes in annoyance, but the grin on his face did not falter. “Said we owed him big time for getting us back together—I threw pizza dough at him.”

Calum laughed in response, heading for the cabinet to grab a stack of paper plates and a bottle of water from the fridge for Luke to drink. He led Luke into the living room and directed Luke to set the pizzas down on the coffee table. Calum was careful to keep himself placed between Luke and Ashton. He didn’t want Luke to scare Ashton, who had been jumpy all evening. Truthfully, it was probably a needless precaution. Luke was the least likely threat to Ashton.

Even more than that, though, Michael was in full-blown protection mode. He hadn’t let go of Ashton all evening, not that Ashton had let go of him, either. After Michael had coaxed Ashton into the living room, he had curled up with him on the couch, and the pair of them had wasted away the evening there underneath the blanket Michael’s grandmother had crocheted for him when he was a kid.

Calum had cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, thoroughly washing the dishes then putting them all away. When he was finished, the only remaining traces of Ashton’s breakdown were the way Ashton’s fingers dug into the skin of Michael’s arms, the frown that haunted Michael’s face, and the knots inside of Calum’s chest.

Afterward, Calum joined Michael and Ashton in the living room, sitting in the arm chair instead of in the empty spot on the couch. Together, they were all desperate to put the earlier incident out of their minds for now. They distracted themselves with horrible reality television that Ashton loved so much. Calum wished that it really was so easy to fix whatever had broken inside of Ashton.

“You’ve got to come around more often,” greeted Michael, grinning up at Luke. “I can totally live with free pizza.”

His arm was still wrapped around Ashton, but he sat forward to help clean off a place on the coffee table for the other box of pizza. If Calum didn’t know Michael so well—didn’t know that Michael was purposefully taking up more room to block Luke from Ashton—it would seem like a friendly gesture. Still, to Luke, it probably was.

“Of course, you can,” said Calum, rolling his eyes. He sat down next to Michael so that Luke would be left to take the arm chair. It was the better arrangement. “You can also live with free coffee—or that’s what you told the dude down at the coffee shop who accidentally mixed up your order and gave you a free gift card in compensation.”

“Hey! I was totally going to buy you a cup of coffee with that tomorrow, thank you very much, but it looks like I might just buy one for Luke with it instead,” threatened Michael.

“You probably should. Luke’s been the one supplying you with pizza,” agreed Ashton. His voice was much softer than usual, but it sounded beautifully absent of the fear that had overwhelmed him earlier. “I mean, it’d only be fair.”

Michael made an agreeable noise in the back of his throat. He shot Ashton a grin before he grabbed one of the paper plates from Calum and started to pile it high with slices of pizza. He handed the plate to Ashton once he was done. Ashton blinked at Michael in surprise. Michael never gave away pizza.

Michael’s grin fell into something more self-conscious, but he urged Ashton to take the plate nonetheless. Ashton smiled to himself as he bowed to Michael’s wishes, taking the plate and setting it down in his lap. Michael busied himself with filling another plate with pizza. This time, he kept it for himself. He sat back against the couch, and Ashton settled back against him. The two fit together like puzzle pieces.

Luke sat down in the empty arm chair with a couple slices of pizza on his plate. Calum handed him the bottle of water, which he accepted with a gracious smile. Luke’s fingers brushed against Calum’s own for the fraction of a second it took to transfer the bottle to Luke’s possession. Calum felt like his hand was on fire for a solid five minutes afterward as they all settled in to watch the rest of the awful reality television program that Ashton enjoyed so much.

Half of an hour later, it seemed that Luke did not share Calum and Michael’s opinion of the reality television show, as he was just as entranced with the program as Ashton was. Luke laughed at the particularly corny jokes that really only garnered a snort and an eye roll, and he gasped, devastated, whenever his professed favorite was voted off the show.

Luke was almost too much to watch, but Calum couldn’t tear his gaze away. He was every bit beautiful as Calum had ever known a human being to be. The living room was dark, lit only by the light from the television. A kaleidoscope of colors bounced off Luke’s face, painting him in shades of blue and yellow and red. Calum wished he had a camera so that he could freeze this moment in time forever, but he doubted that a lens would be able to capture the pure ethereal beauty that was Luke right now.

“I wouldn’t last, like, a day on this show,” said Luke, whenever the credits began to roll.

He glanced over at the couch where Calum sat with Michael and Ashton. Calum only then realized he was inappropriately staring at Luke. He blushed and looked away, but the damage was done. He curled his hands into fists, feeling more exposed to another human being than he had felt in a long, long time.

Next to Calum, Michael glanced over at him. Calum didn’t need to look back at Michael to know that there was concern deep in Michael’s eyes. It was concern that was, for the first time all evening, not directed at Ashton.

“Nah, I think you’d win it,” said Ashton to Luke. He leaned forward to peek around Michael so that he could offer Luke a friendly grin. It was a ghost of his usual charm, but, after the state he had been in earlier that day, it was everything. “You’re too nice for people to vote off. I mean, you’ve brought us free pizza every time you’ve come over. That’s got to count for something.”

“So my tag line would be ‘the pizza delivery boy,’ or something like that?”

“Something catchier, probably,” said Ashton. “Like ‘gives out free pizza.’ You’d be a big hit on those dating shows. You’d never have to pay for dinner.”

“Yeah,” snorted Luke, “because I’m going to win over somebody through free food.”

“It worked for me with Michael,” retorted Ashton, but, in the next second, he went rigid. His eyes went wide. He shrank back from Michael, severing any touch between them for the first time all evening. “I—I—”

“Ash—” tried Michael, but it was no use.

“I didn’t mean to—to imply that we were—I mean—we’re just _friends_ , I know, and I should have—please, don’t—I didn’t mean to overstep my place. I know my place. I know it. I swear, I do.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Michael, terrified and half-crazed. His voice was barely above a whisper, but everything else was deadly silent, even the credits to the trashy reality television show. “There is no place. It’s just you and me and whatever you want between us.”

Ashton shook his head, scooting even farther away from Michael until he was perched on the arm of the couch with no more space to move. He looked every bit like a cornered, scared, wild animal. His entire body trembled. He regarded Michael with large, fearful eyes.

“But it isn’t. It never is.”

Michael paled, the blood draining from his face quicker than it took him to draw in a startled breath. His own eyes went wide. He stared at Ashton like he couldn’t believe the wonderful man before him could say such after things about himself.

Michael’s heart broke right before them all, but Ashton had averted his gaze to his own lap. He hunched his shoulders. Everything about him screamed _submission_. It was out of place. Michael thought the world of Ashton. He believed the best in Ashton, and never would Michael ask Ashton to submit to him. Never would Michael ask Ashton to be anything except one hundred and twenty percent of himself, and Ashton Irwin was not a man who submitted to anybody.

Calum felt a sick lurch in his stomach. He wanted to bolt from the room, because he wanted to help Ashton, but he couldn’t, and he couldn’t handle the fact that he couldn’t. He didn’t know how to make things better. He didn’t even know what to say. For a long moment, neither did Michael. The tension thickened in the air. On the other side of Calum, Luke sat straight-backed. He must have been just as uncomfortable—just as _helpless_ —as Calum himself felt.

“It always is with me,” said Michael, solemnly.

He didn’t try to reach out for Ashton’s hands, though his own hands twitched with the urge to do just that. He sat as still as he could, and he waited until Ashton felt brave enough to meet his gaze once more. A long span of minutes of silence passed before Ashton’s eyes hesitantly flickered upward.

Michael smiled, obviously relieved that Ashton trusted him enough to dare to meet his eyes. A ghost of horror remained behind on Michael’s cheeks. Ashton was broken before him, and Michael couldn’t fix him. He couldn’t help him. He didn’t know where to begin, so he started talking and hoped for the best.

“I swear to you that whatever you want between us is exactly what you will have. I have told you before, and I will tell you a million times more if you need me to. You are important to me, and it is important to me that you are happy—that you are satisfied with the way things are between us. You are the one in control. You are the one calling the shots.”

Ashton sucked in a startled breath. He immediately shook his head, his eyes locked with Michael’s. A glint of misplaced fear shined in his own. It looked eerie against the backdrop of Ashton’s typically optimistic disposition. He opened his mouth to speak—to dispute Michael’s assertion—but Michael didn’t give him the chance.

“You are, okay? I swear it, and it’s all right if you don’t believe me right now. All that I ask is that you trust me.”

Ashton was silent. He held Michael’s gaze, though everything about his hunched posture belied how much effort it took for him to resist the urge to bow his head. Isolated on the edge of the couch, Ashton looked smaller than a human being of his stature ever should. It wasn’t right.

“Can you do that?” asked Michael, prodding at Ashton. “Can you trust me?”

“I—” began Ashton, but he stopped. His hands trembled in his lap. A frown appeared on his lips, and he looked for all of the world like he wished he could have assured Michael immediately. Ashton had never, ever been able to lie to Michael. He could lie to Calum ten times over but never to Michael.

For his part, Michael merely winced at Ashton’s hesitation, though Calum knew that it was a cruel lash against Michael’s bleeding heart. Michael didn’t have much figured out in his life. There were many reasons he and Ashton had spent years dancing around the fact that they were head over heels in love with each other, but Michael himself was the biggest factor. That didn’t mean, though, that Michael loved Ashton any less than a person could love another human being. It didn’t. It only meant that Michael’s fears were sometimes stronger than his faith.

It wasn’t really fair of Michael, then, to ask Ashton to trust in him when Michael himself had looked Ashton in the eyes time and time again and flat out told Ashton that he couldn’t trust Ashton. But Michael did it anyway. Michael loved Ashton too much not to.

Even more importantly, Michael loved Ashton too much to give up.

“ _Please_ , Ashton, I swear to you that you are important to me. Please, _please_ , trust me.”

It wasn’t that easy, for Michael to have just asked Ashton to trust him and then Ashton trusted him. It wasn’t, but it was close enough. Ashton hesitated only long enough to let out a breath, like he was readying himself to walk headfirst, barefoot into the pits of hell. In the end, he nodded, because this was Michael asking Ashton to trust him, and Ashton was weak for Michael. He had always been.

“Mike,” said Ashton, his voice as broken as his posture belied he was. He fell forward into Michael’s waiting arms. He tucked himself underneath Michael’s chin, making himself as small as he could so that he could curl completely into Michael’s body and be protected and safe. “ _Mike_.”

Michael’s name was like a prayer on Ashton’s lips. Michael wrapped his arms as tight as he physically could around Ashton. Michael’s face was still pale. He looked terrified, his lower lip wobbling as he sucked in air through his mouth. He met Calum’s eyes over top Ashton’s head.

Calum tried to give him a reassuring smile, because if anybody could make Ashton feel better—if anybody could make Ashton feel _safe_ —it was Michael. Somewhere in the back of Calum’s mind, though, a tiny voice questioned Michael’s ability to protect Ashton this time. Whatever it was that had Ashton this shaken up—whatever it was that had reduced Ashton to nothing more than a terrified shell of his former self—seemed a whole lot bigger than even Michael’s love for Ashton.

It was a sobering possibility that Calum didn’t want to dwell upon.

“It’s getting late,” said Luke, softly like he knew that, if he were to speak any louder than a whisper, Ashton might break down trembling once more. Luke spoke mainly to Calum, but he was kind to be considerate of Ashton. “I should get going.”

Any other night, Calum might have tried to convince Luke to stay. He wished this time that he could do so in good conscience, but, with Ashton terrified in Michael’s arms, Calum knew better than to beg Luke to stay. Luke was nice. He had hung out with Calum as well as with Michael and Ashton often enough to be considered a friend, and a good one at that, but there were some things that Calum, Michael, and Ashton needed to tackle alone. This was one of them.

“I’ll show you out,” offered Calum, though, surely, Luke could get himself from the arm chair to the front door without getting lost. The apartment was tiny, and Luke had been here several times before.

Regardless, Luke accepted Calum’s offer. He bade Michael and Ashton a good night as quietly as he could. He waited until Calum was placed between him and Ashton before he stood up like he knew exactly what to do to keep from scaring Ashton even more than he already was. It was the kindest nicety Calum had ever witnessed, and, of course, it came from Luke.

Calum escorted Luke to the front door. It was a quiet affair until they both stepped outside into the hallway. Neither wanted to disturb Michael and Ashton. Calum pulled the door shut behind him, waiting until it latched before speaking.

“I’m—”

“Don’t apologize for that,” interrupted Luke, as if he had read Calum’s mind. He shook his head, sighing. “Everybody goes through some shit, and everybody is entitled to breaking the fuck down when that happens. I dunno what happened to Ashton, and, quite frankly, it’s none of my business, but you don’t have to apologize to me for him. I consider him a friend, whether he does me or not. If there was anything I could do, I would do it for him in a heartbeat.”

“Ashton thinks of you as a friend, too,” said Calum, properly chastised for his misguided attempt to apologize for the tension they had left in the living room. He had the fleeting thought of Zayn and how Zayn would have gotten angry with Calum over Ashton’s behavior, but Luke wasn’t Zayn. He wasn’t. Calum felt a spike of guilt for even thinking of them in the same train of thought. “So does Michael. Trust me. If either of them didn’t, they would have asked you to leave long before things got uncomfortable.”

“I believe you,” said Luke. There was a small smile on his face, like the confirmation of Ashton and Michael’s friendship pleased him greatly. It shouldn’t have been all that surprising to him. He fit in so well with Calum’s friends—he fit in so well in Calum’s life—that, surely, he had to have known all along. “Thank you for having me over this evening.”

“I’d ask you to stay tonight, but…”

“Yeah,” said Luke. “I understand. I want Ashton to feel as safe as you and Michael do.”

“And I’m sure you’d prefer a nice warm bed to our lumpy couch anyway,” said Calum.

Luke snorted like Calum had told a good joke, but he didn’t respond. He bade Calum good night instead and made his exit down the hallway. It was late at night. Calum couldn’t blame Luke for not wanting to tarry outside of Calum’s apartment, so, instead of feeding into the urge to call after Luke and strike up time-delaying conversation, he let Luke go.

Like a love struck fool, though, Calum was greedy. He stood outside of his apartment until Luke disappeared into the elevator. It was an unconscious impulse to soak up as much of Luke as Calum possibly could, because, once upon a time, Calum had loved a monster and Calum had forgotten what it felt like to be so innocently in love with another person to dread their departure. In the final months of his relationship with Zayn, Calum had looked forward to their separation, even if it was only for a few hours at a time.

Now, though, Calum was in unfamiliar waters. It should have been scary, how gone for Luke Calum was, but it wasn’t. It was nice. When Luke stepped into the elevator and turned around to press the button that would take him to the ground floor, he looked back at Calum and smiled. The smile brought a flurry of butterflies to Calum’s stomach, and Calum smiled back.

It was a little pathetic—and, truthfully, a little scary—but when the elevator doors closed, separating Calum from Luke, Calum already missed Luke. He sighed, rolling his eyes at himself. The smile on his face didn’t disappear. It was nice having a not-so-tiny crush on Luke. There were worse people Calum could fall for—and he had, indeed, fallen for those worse people before.

Calum headed back into the apartment. He went through an elaborate motion of locking the door as loudly as he could, but, in the end, it was probably a useless gesture. Neither Michael nor Ashton were in the living room anymore. The lack of light underneath Michael’s bedroom door suggested the pair of them had already retreated to bed. Calum hoped that Ashton would sleep soundly, peacefully, in Michael’s arms.

There was no reason to stay up any longer, not with Luke gone and Michael already in bed with Ashton. Calum flipped off the kitchen light, and he navigated his way to the bathroom in the dark before his eyes properly adjusted to the sudden lack of light. Fortunately, he knew this place well enough to sidestep around the kitchen table that he couldn’t see in the near-pitch blackness of the apartment. In the first few weeks of living here, Calum must have stubbed his toe on it at least twenty times before he finally figured out how much to navigate around it.

In the bathroom, Calum used the toilet before he washed up. He brushed his teeth then sloshed a capful of mouthwash around in his mouth and spit it out. In and out in under ten minutes, he left the bathroom like he found it with the door propped open and the light turned off.

He didn’t bother turning on the overhead light in his bedroom. He stripped himself of his clothes, all the way down to his boxers, as he crossed the room to his tiny bed. He crawled underneath the covers and tried not to think about how lonely it was in here. He tried not to think about how he was pretty sure there was just enough room on the mattress for Luke to fit, too.

He failed in the latter endeavor, so he fell asleep thinking about Luke, and he dreamed they were trapped together in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

In the morning, Calum woke up long before Michael or Ashton even turned over in bed. He hoped that they had slept through the night and that Ashton would feel better this morning. Ashton deserved that at the very least.

Calum perked a pot of coffee as he hurried to get ready for the day. He hadn’t woken up any later than he typically did on the days he went into work early; however, he was always sluggish in the mornings. This one was no different. It took him an extra ten minutes to get out of the door than it usually did.

The commute to work was uneventful, except that Calum was running later than he should have been. He parked haphazardly in the employee section of the parking lot, taking up two spots, but there were always plenty of unused spots, so he wasn’t too concerned. He had to book it to the store to punch in his time before he was late.

Josh, always cheerful in the mornings, got a good laugh at Calum dashing through the store to the back. Calum thought about flipping him off, but he couldn’t afford the distraction. Josh had a customer at his register anyway.

In the back, Calum clocked in on time but just barely. Harry was already there, his long hair thrown back in a sloppy bun and his work vest slipping off one shoulder. He looked just as put together as Calum himself felt this morning. This, more than anything over the past few weeks of Harry working here, made Calum feel like maybe had been a little too harsh with Harry since they met. After all, if looks were to be trusted, Harry was as human as Calum.

“I’d promise you my first born child if you’d work the baseball section,” propositioned Harry from his spot at the work binder. “Well, maybe not my first born, but, seriously, the last time I was in charge of that section, an avalanche of bats nearly brained me.”

Calum laughed. He felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t been here to witness such a feat. According to Josh, it was quite a spectacle. Harry had walked around with a blackened eye for days afterward.

“’S why you’re supposed to keep the shelf locked.”

Harry snorted.

“I know that now.”

He turned around to face Calum, leaning up against the counter. He had a hint of a congenial smile on his lips. At this early of a morning, with a pillow line still pressed faintly into his cheeks, Harry looked nothing like a man who could befriend a monster, Calum realized. This realization, however, was short lived.

“Got any plans for t’night?” asked Harry.

It wasn’t an odd topic of conversation. Over the past few weeks, Calum had gotten good at making meaningless small talk with Harry to pass the long, dead hours at the store. They talked about their college classes mainly, but sometimes they ventured into more personal subjects like what they had done the previous evening that was worth mentioning or what they planned to do with a well-deserved three-day weekend.

“Heading to carnival night on campus. Best night of the entire festival.”

“You’ve got a point there,” conceded Harry. His grin faded into nothingness. “Don’t think I’ll make it, though. Za—I mean, my _friend_ is throwing a party at his apartment.”

Calum’s heart stopped beating in his chest the moment Harry’s slow drawl aborted the name _Zayn_. To Harry’s credit, he did seem apologetic for bringing up the subject in the first place. He stood a little straighter as he realized his mistake. It was the first time Harry had ever broached the awful subject of the monster that had singlehandedly destroyed Calum.

“Sorry, I was just—”

“Trying to butter me up to work the baseball section, yeah,” interrupted Calum. His heart was now pounding in his chest. His hands were trembling, so he tucked inside of his pockets. He headed for the door of the back room. He needed to get away from Harry and all of the ghosts of Zayn haunting his thoughts. “Next time, just lie to me and tell me I’m pretty.”

Harry called after him, “But that wouldn’t be a lie!”

Calum was already long gone. Harry’s words chased after him like the moon after the sun. Calum didn’t care to let them catch him, because Harry had crossed a line that neither of them had acknowledged in all of the time that Harry had worked at the store with Calum, and Calum couldn’t shake the idea that Zayn came back into his life shortly after Harry entered it. While it was probably nothing more than an innocent coincidence, there was a tiny voice in the back of Calum’s mind that doubted such a happenstance was possible.


	8. Fruity Little Drink

Carnival night was the greatest theme of the entire college festival.  The campus was vibrant for the cool October evening, lively and filled with students and faculty alike enjoying the final days of the celebration. Calum had already been there for three hours, and the joy of it all had yet to wear off.

The demons that had plagued Ashton last night seemed to have abated in the past twenty-four hours. While Calum was thankful for the reprieve, he wasn’t naïve enough to think that Ashton was magically better. People don’t have a breakdown in front of their friends and be all right the next day just like that.

It was nice, though, that Ashton seemed to be back to his old self, even if it was merely a calm before the storm—or, rather, a break in the storm.

Michael and Ashton had, expectedly, dominated the three-legged sack race, pulling far ahead of their only other competition, a pair which was composed of Liam and Ashley, to win the high honors of champions. Calum, himself, had mastered bobbing for apples after the third time of nearly drowning in the vat of sugary water. It had been a personal record for him.

All in all, Calum was having a rather enjoyable time. Much unlike the shots of tequila which he had choked down earlier, the colorful drink in his hand had a kick to it as it went down that was diluted by the fruit add-ins to make it rather enjoyable. He sipped on it thoughtlessly as he watched Michael and Ashton drunkenly challenge each other to see who could juggle the longest with the bowling pins one of them had nicked from a rip-off prize game. Ashton had drunk considerably less than Michael, having smartly elected to stay clear of the shots, so he was holding his own better than Michael was.

It was amusing, nonetheless. Calum stood with Liam, Josh, and Ashley and joined in on the cheers for either Michael or Ashton—whichever one it was who was doing the worst at any given moment. Calum hadn’t had so much fun in such a long time, and he wished that the carnival night would never end.

The only downside to the evening was that Calum had not seen Luke all day. Calum had stayed late at the store this morning to cover the beginning of the next shift, because one of the other associates had called in sick. Harry had class, and Josh was in a bind, and Calum couldn’t say no to overtime. Unfortunately, though, that meant Calum had spent his lunch hour on the clock instead of in the pizza parlor with Luke. By the time that Calum got off the clock, he had to rush to get to campus for his first lecture.

Calum had stopped by the pizza place on his way home, but it was a fruitless endeavor. Luke’s shift was long over. Only Tyler stood at the counter to greet him with the news that he had missed Luke by a couple of hours. Calum was left with nothing to do except to explain to Tyler all about his day and then ask Tyler to pass along his apologies to Luke whenever he had the chance.

It only then occurred to Calum that he didn’t have Luke’s cell phone number. Beyond that, he didn’t even know if Luke had a cell phone. The only way Calum had ever gotten a hold of Luke over the past few weeks was by stopping by the pizza place on a daily basis or by running into Luke through pure happenstance on campus and inviting Luke over to his apartment then. Clearly, Calum needed a better way to keep in contact with Luke, especially so that he could invite Luke to fun things like carnival night at the university, but, unfortunately, that was something future-Calum had to do.

Present-Calum was drunk. He had just finished the nice fruity drink in his hand. It certainly wasn’t his first of the night, not even counting the shots from earlier. He kind of wanted another, but getting another meant wading through the mass of people to the other side of the quad. He wasn’t sure it was worth the effort just yet. Maybe in a few minutes when the world stopped spinning. When he burped, it tasted like strawberries. He leaned almost all of his weight on Ashley, and it was that more than anything that was a testament to the amount of alcohol in his system. Sober people could remain upright without assistance.

Michael was finally crowned the king of juggling after Ashton nearly knocked himself out with one of the pins. It was going leave behind a nasty bruise, and Ashton would be sporting a black eye come the next morning, but Ashton was laughing too hard to care. High on life and the excitement of carnival night and, Calum suspected, Michael himself, Ashton was nothing like the fragile human being he had been last night. It was a momentary relief.

In the center of the quad, a bouncy castle was set up, because the university knew good and well that its students were really just kids at heart. Ashton laughed off his injury, tripped over his abandoned juggling pins, and stumbled over to Michael. He nearly fell on his face right in front of Michael, but Michael was there to reach out and steady him. Ashton melted into Michael’s side, content and safe in Michael’s hold.

“’S go the castle. I wanna make you my king!” he declared, obviously drunk and so in love with Michael that he pressed a wet kiss to the side of Michael’s mouth.

Michael blushed a pretty shade of pink, but he grinned. He was always easy for Ashton. He could never, ever tell Ashton no, so he agreed to escort Ashton to the castle.

“Only if I get to make you my king first,” said Michael. For a long moment, he had eyes for nobody except Ashton. Then, remembering himself, he glanced over his shoulder at Calum and the others. “C’mon. Ashton demands a crowning ceremony, and, dammit, we need subjects to rule over!”

Michael stepped away from Ashton only to thread their fingers together and tug Ashton toward the bouncy castle. They were both intoxicated, so they swayed on their feet, but, together, they made a formidable pair against the alcohol. Liam and Josh, both only slightly tipsy, hurried to follow after the pair of them before Michael and Ashton overestimated their own capabilities of trekking across ground littered with obstacles that could easily trip them up.

Ashley looped her arm through Calum’s, and they half-heartedly followed the others toward the bouncy castle. Calum’s stomach was churning unhappily. There was already entirely too much alcohol sloshing around in his belly for him to even consider trying out the bouncy castle. The closer they got to their destination, the more Calum’s stomach rolled. He shrugged out of Ashley’s hold.

“’M gonna go home. Think I might vomit if I go in there,” he said, nodding toward the castle. It was the wrong thing to do, though, as his head spun and a wave of nausea washed over him. If he wasn’t careful, he might actually vomit right here in front of the castle.

“’K. I’ll tell the others then I’ll take you home,” said Ashley.

“No,” said Calum. He almost shook his head but remembered himself at the last possible second. “No, you should stay and have more fun. I’m just going to conk out as soon as I get to the apartment.”

“But it’s going to be a long walk,” she said. Worry shined in her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin was warmed by the drinks she had consumed, but she, like Liam and Josh, was nowhere near as drunk as Calum or as Michael and Ashton. “I don’t like you going alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Calum. “I might take a cab. I think I’ve got enough cash on me to cover the fare.”

Still, Ashley hesitated.

“Seriously, stay and have fun—and keep an eye on Michael and Ashton for me, all right?”

“You know I will,” said Ashley, immediately. She sighed. “Text me as soon as you get home.”

“Might vomit first, but after that, I swear I will,” agreed Calum.

Just like that, though still very hesitant, Ashley let Calum go. He threw up a wave at the others as he left. Michael and Ashton hardly paid him any attention, off in their own little world of each other. Calum didn’t take it personally. Michael and Ashton had always sort of lived in their own universe, and Calum didn’t blame Michael for being so distracted by the glorious sight of Ashton, cheeks flushed from alcohol and happiness, with a paper crown slanted atop his head.

Calum staggered away from the carnival in the direction of his apartment. He had told Ashley that he would take a cab, but, upon considering it, he decided to take the bus instead. There was a stop not too far from the quad and another one about a block down from Calum’s apartment. It wouldn’t be the first time he had stumbled drunk onto a bus for it to take him home. He doubted it would be his last, either.

The alcohol strumming through Calum’s veins warmed him. The air was still chilly. It was mid-October, leaning toward the end of the month. Cold weather was to be expected, especially in the hours long after sunset. Calum huddled down into his jacket, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets, as a cool breeze broke through the calm night.

Calum stumbled across cracks in the sidewalk. He felt a bit woozy. His head felt light-weight like the colorful balloons that had been tied to the chairs at the carnival night. He was a little more drunk than he had originally assumed, so he took to running his hand along the row of buildings to his right. It helped him to remain upright. Mostly, it helped keep him oriented. The last thing he needed to do was to wander off in the wrong direction and spend the entire night in a drunken stupor out in the freezing cold.

Turning a corner, the bus stop came into view. It was a single bench illuminated by a flickering lamp post. Calum made his way toward it, but something else caught his eye. In the distance, parked underneath a street light of a parking lot to the all-night superstore, he spotted a familiar old blue car. His quest for the bus stop screeched to a grinding halt.

A wave of nausea washed over him, and he suddenly wished he had not eaten so many apples earlier. He swallowed against the urge to vomit as he staggered out into the street. His sight was set upon that old blue car, but a loud honk startled him enough to send him scurrying to the other sidewalk. A truck sped past him.

It was harder to walk whenever there was nothing onto which he could hold or with which he could guide himself. His entire body was numb, the good kind of tingly that kept a smile plastered across his face. His feet felt like otherworldly limbs as he concentrated on putting one in front of the other. Slowly but surely, he closed the distance to the familiar car.

The driver’s seat was empty, but a head of familiar blond hair lay on an old checkered pillow in the backseat. Luke slept scrunched up with a tattered blanket draped across his form. It was nowhere near thick enough to knock off the chill of the late October air. Calum was struck dumb in his drunken stupor, the horrifying realization dawning soberly upon him. He pushed it aside as quickly as possible, because he could worry about why Luke was sleeping in his car later when Calum himself was not so drunk or so liable to vomit all over his own shoes.

Calum tried to knock softly on the window to get Luke’s attention, but his hand weighed a ton. It smacked loudly against the glass, bouncing off with such force that it should have hurt. Maybe it did, indeed, hurt. Alcohol was a good numbing agent, after all.

It didn’t actually matter if Calum’s hand hurt or not, because it had done what he had intended. Luke jumped awake, eyes wide and hand reaching for the closest blunt object which happened to be a boot. His gaze fell instantly upon Calum, and he looked even more scared. Calum grinned toothily back at him blinking rapidly as the world threatened to go fuzzy. He was so overcome with a sudden burst of happiness at the sight of Luke that he could deal with why Luke’s car looked like a home later when the alcohol was out of his system.

Luke’s fear gave way to confusion until relief chased that away, too, and he recognized the drunken sway of Calum’s body. He climbed over to the door Calum stood beside and tried to open it. He had to shove the door hard, because Calum, in his drunkenness, was leaning against it. When Luke finally got out of the car, Calum’s hands immediately curled around Luke’s shoulders so that he could steady himself when the alcohol threatened to buckle his knees.

“What are you doing here?” asked Luke, his voice gentle in the cool night.

His breath was warm against Calum’s cheek, they were standing so close together. Calum hiccupped but his wide grin never faltered. His eyes were bloodshot, wide in a way only the alcohol could make them. It took him a beat longer than it should have to realize Luke had asked a question and was expecting an answer. Calum, though, had a question of his own.

“Why are you sleeping in your car, you silly?”

“You’re drunk, Calum,” said Luke.

If the slur in Calum’s words or the sway of Calum’s body weren’t enough by themselves to belie such a truth, the stark scent of liquor on Calum’s breath was a dead giveaway. Luke knew about the carnival night, and he knew the copious amount of alcohol the annual weeklong festival touted. It didn’t come as a surprise that Calum was drunk off his ass, though, admittedly, Luke hadn’t expected Calum to be so drunk in his arms.

The expression on Calum’s face grew serious. For a split second, Luke feared that it would not be so easy to divert the conversation. Then Calum burped and collapsed against Luke in a fit of giggles, feeling oddly proud of himself.

“That tasted like strawberries.”

Apparently strawberries were somehow humorous to him as well, because his giggles became uncontrollable. He gave himself over to it. His body shook against Luke’s, and Luke could do nothing except smile fondly down at Calum, the beautiful mess of a man in his arms.

Calum had the faint sobering thought that it felt nice to be held—that if he tried hard enough, or maybe not hard at all, he could pretend like this was a lover’s embrace. That was scary, almost, because the last time somebody had held him so intimately, Calum had nearly lost himself to a monster the man really was. But this—Luke’s arms around him and his face pressed against the nape of Luke’s neck—didn’t feel scary at all. It felt nice in all of the ways that Calum had never imagined he would ever feel again, so Calum let his giggles drift off into nothingness as he enjoyed the warm body pressed against his.

The warmth wasn’t to last. Neither was the moment. A soft wind blew chilly air across them. Luke, dressed only in a heavy sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, shivered in it. Calum stiffened next to him, remembering why they were crowded next to Luke’s car in the first place. Calum went rigid as he pulled slightly away from Luke so that he could look Luke in the eyes. There was a green tint to Calum’s face, almost as if he were overcome with the urge to vomit.

Time hung suspended between them until—

Calum crashed his lips against Luke’s, landing like a wave against a rocky ocean shore. Luke’s eyes fluttered closed on instinct. He brought a hand up to cup Calum’s cheek, and the other hand fell to small of Calum’s back so that Luke could draw Calum nearer to him. Calum tilted his head to deepen the kiss. His hands went for Luke’s head, his fingers tangling in the matted mess.

There was a moan, which Luke thought must have come from him because it seemed to take all of Calum’s coordination to participate in the kiss that he himself had initiated. The kiss was soft and fiery. Frantic and charged. Fleeting and eternal, all at once. In the back of his mind, Luke wondered if he would end up as drunk as Calum by the time they finally parted.

They broke apart, both gasping for air. At some point during the kiss, Calum had backed Luke against the car. Luke was thankful for it, too, as his knees threatened to gave way beneath him. He rubbed circles up and down Calum’s back. The night was thick with silence around them, and the only noise were the huffing of their erratic breaths and the slick sound of Luke’s palm sliding across Calum’s puffy jacket.

In the few precious moment following the kiss, Luke’s mind finally caught up to the reality of the situation. He froze, his entire body icing over. They could not do this. Calum was drunk, for one. Beyond that, there was a whole slew of other issues which both of them faced and which neither of them could ignore.

This tentative friendship between them had already crashed and burned without the additive of sexual tension. They did not need to complicate it anymore. Because Luke was the only sober party present, it was up to him to ensure their friendship survived this ordeal.

“Let’s get you home,” he murmured.

Calum did not seem to want to part with him, but he allowed himself to be wrestled into the passenger’s seat of Luke’s vehicle. Luke buckled him up like a child, batting away Calum’s hands as the man tried to catch him for another kiss. Calum seemed to be a rather affectionate drunk. Luke grabbed the pillow and blanket from the backseat. He propped Calum’s head against the pillow then covered him up. Calum grinned drunkenly at Luke once more before his eyes slowly closed.

 

When Calum woke the next morning, he craved two things: the toilet and a gallon of water. He did not care which order he got them, but he needed them soon. His bladder felt like it would burst at any second, filled, as it was, with last night’s many drinks. His mouth tasted papery, like a desert had sprung up in it during his sleep. His head pounded in the midst of the massive hangover as he muttered his first curse of the morning, this one aimed at Liam who had insisted on starting the previous evening with shots of tequila. Calum did not even like tequila.

He blinked open his eyes cautiously, because, knowing his drunken self, he expected his room to be brightly lit. It was not. Instead, only the faintest amount of daylight filtered through the blue curtains that hung over his window. It provided enough light to allow him to see the figure curled up in a ball at the foot of his bed, and Calum’s heart skipped a beat in his chest.

It was Luke.

Something tugged at the back of Calum’s mind, but he could not place what it was. Last night was a haze at best. He could remember the tequila, the apples, something about juggling and a bouncy castle, and even the deliciously fruity drinks to which he had gladly turned after the shots. What he could not remember, however, was how exactly he had gotten home. Also, he wasn’t entirely sure how Luke could be curled up at the foot of his bed when Luke himself didn’t join in the festivities with Calum and his friends last night.

There were too many questions for Calum’s hungover brain to handle.

Calum sat up and immediately pressed his hand to his mouth as he fought against the urge to vomit. He made a mental note to move slower in the future. He had apparently not spent most of last night bent over a toilet throwing up everything which he had drunk down. That was a bit comforting, because that meant Luke did not witness such a humiliating sight. It was also a bit disheartening, though, and explained why his hangover was so severe right now.

He took a moment to look over Luke, noting the exhausted lines which marred his sleeping face. Luke must have stayed awake most of the night to ensure that Calum did not choke on his own vomit. Calum felt a warm emotion bubble up in his chest that was stained with the sudden recollection of giggling uncontrollably against Luke’s chest. That in and of itself was almost as humiliating as the idea of vomiting up the contents of his stomach into the toilet in Luke’s presence. In fact, it might have been even worse.

The sharp pain in Calum’s bladder reminded him of his urgent need to relieve himself so he carefully climbed out of his bed. For someone who was suffering from a horrible hangover, careful was not something easily achievable. After a couple of false starts, he managed well enough. His stomach rolled uncomfortably as the series of sudden movements in his quest to get to the toilet brought a fresh wave of nausea upon him.

He stumbled out of his room, feet falling so hard against the carpet that he had to glance over his shoulder to make sure Luke was still sleeping. Thankfully, Luke was. Calum turned back around so that he could watch where he was walking, because the last thing he needed to do was trip over the corner of the sofa table and then end up vomiting all over the floor.

The door to the bathroom was closed, and the light which shined in the crack beneath it denoted it was in use. It was nothing new in the apartment, since Michael and Calum shared the one bathroom and since Ashton stayed over here so much he might as well be counted as a fellow tenant. It was, however, a bit inconvenient at the given moment.

Calum knocked against the door, palms splayed flat as if he were slapping it instead. He winced at the ache that spread through his hand. For a split second, the window of a car door flashed in his mind, but the door in front of him swung open before he could analyze the sliver of a memory.

Michael stood before him, looking entirely too happy for such an awful hour in the morning. Calum noted that Michael did not seem to be suffering a hangover. Calum was overwhelmed with a brief moment of jealousy. The only evidence of the previous night’s excursion was the small friction burn that curved along Michael’s cheekbone. He must have gotten it in the bouncy castle after Calum left, because Calum was sure he would have noticed it last night even under the haze of alcohol.

“There’s a man in your bed, Calum,” said Michael, gleefully.

The twinkle in Michael’s eyes suggested he knew it was Luke, but Michael could never resist the urge to tease Calum. It was one of the many joys Michael took out of life. Calum rolled his eyes in response and tried to step around Michael. The need to relieve his bladder was greater than the want to defend himself against Michael’s onslaught.

Michael, however, had other thoughts. He stepped with Calum, blocking Calum’s path into the bathroom. Calum could see the white porcelain of the toilet. It was taunting him. A pang shot through his bladder as he considered how indignant Michael might be if Calum decided to just pick Michael up and set him aside. Calum is pretty sure he could do it.

“He stayed up all night with you, you know. Didn’t even hesitate to plop himself at the end of your bed to keep watch. Didn’t want anything, either,” said Michael.

There was an air of seriousness about Michael that he usually didn’t bother with. Whatever it was he was getting at must have been important. Calum didn’t care for Michael’s riddles. When Michael paused for Calum to say something, Calum merely shifted his attention from the toilet to Michael but remained silent. He knew Michael had no patience for anything other than the full on truth. In the end, he was right. Michael sighed.

“He’s a good man, a good friend. Not like—well, I suppose you’ve come to that conclusion on your own, but I just thought you should know that he’s treated you better in the past twelve hours than that monster did in two years. That’s got to say a lot about Luke, doesn’t it?”

 _Yeah_ , thought Calum, _it does_ , but he didn’t say it out loud. Michael didn’t need for him to, and Michael didn’t wait around for a response either once he said his part. The truth was plain enough to see. Luke was a good person—the exact kind of good person that Calum would like to spend the rest of his life with…

Maybe it was still a little too soon for Calum to let himself be so ungodly vulnerable to another person in such a monumental way, but maybe Calum was beginning to think that if he were going to trust somebody with his heart—with his _life_ —he would like it to be Luke.


	9. Open Door

Calum would have liked to say that the blank spaces in his memory from the carnival night were gradually filled as time went on, but they were not. He was as clueless to the exact series of events that had transpired as he was to the true story behind Michael’s friction burn. The latter was discussed in hushed tones between Michael and Ashton, whose eye was not nearly as blackened as had been expected after the juggling accident. Whenever Calum had asked the pair what they were whispering about, they immediately changed the subject, though this was punctuated by identical faint blushes that stained their cheeks. A consolation of it all, though, was that neither Ashley nor Josh nor even Liam seemed to be any more in the know than Calum.

Halloween was rapidly approaching, and so was Josh’s party. Though the unexplained ache in Calum’s hand subsided within a couple of days, memories of the last hangover were still fresh in his mind. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat. He was not entirely certain he was even ready for more alcohol, but he was excited at the prospect of a party nonetheless. He vowed to himself that he would skip the tequila shots this time. Maybe that would help.

Unlike the carnival night, Calum had gotten around to inviting Luke to the Halloween party. Luke had easily agreed, so now Calum had something else he could look forward to besides getting drunk off questionably named alcohol. Maybe that would help curb his hangover even better than laying off the tequila. Or maybe not. Calum always felt a little drunk off life whenever he was around Luke.

The week the carnival night passed like normal until Wednesday rolled around, and Calum’s last lecture ran late. He had promised he would stop by the pizza place at the end of Luke’s shift, but it was already twenty minutes past then. He wasn’t sure whether Luke would even still be at the pizza parlor, but, on the off chance that Luke had indeed waiting on him, he was eager to see Luke, just like he always was.

Calum dashed across campus. Cold wind whipped his unprotected face. It was scarf weather, but he had left his twisted around the back of the kitchen chair that morning. He cursed his past self for the stupidity as he hurried down the concrete steps, using the railing to propel his feet faster, and darted to his car.

A hooded figure huddled over the hood of Calum’s vehicle as if the person were a friend waiting on him, but Calum had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that the person was the complete opposite of a friend. As Calum drew nearer to his car, his suspicions proved to be true. Calum stopped so quickly that his feet skid against the rough blacktop of the parking lot. A pound of nails twisted in his gut. His breath caught in his throat.

It was Zayn.

“Late class?” called Zayn, as if he really were just one friend waiting on another.

His hands were shoved into the pockets of his thick jacket, but he brought one out to run through his dark hair. His knuckles were bruised and scabbed. For a brief second, Calum’s mind flashed back to the many times those same knuckles had destroyed themselves against Calum’s own flesh. He swallowed against the bile that rushed up his throat and found himself wondering who it was that Zayn had bloodied his fists against this time.

“What do you want?” demanded Calum.

There might have been a time in which the mere presence of Zayn would have made Calum weak at the knees, both in the good way and, later, in the bad way. That time had long since passed. Soft anger boiled in Calum’s stomach. It was not the type of emotion that gave him an inclination to do something drastic such as punch the monster of a man in front of him, but it was the kind that hated the shell of a human being Zayn had once turned Calum into. It was leftover resentment. Nobody should have as much power over somebody else as Zayn once had over Calum.

“I don’t know your phone number, and I don’t know where you live—”

“For a good reason,” spat Calum.

He folded his arms across his chest. Putting forth the best glare he could muster, he wished he were anywhere else but here with Zayn. He was already late to meet Luke at the pizza place. Every moment he tarried in the parking lot with Zayn was another moment he did not get to spend with Luke, assuming, of course, that Luke hadn’t already given up on Calum due to Calum’s tardiness already.

“I thought you might want to go out and get coffee sometime,” continued Zayn, unperturbed by the interruption. “You know, start over and whatnot. I, uh... I miss you.”

Calum snorted, anger flaring up in his chest at the nerve Zayn had to tell him such a thing. He narrowed his eyes at Zayn’s battered fist that hung by his side. Zayn glanced down at it and winced sheepishly. He looked back up at Calum.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Save it,” said Calum.

He did not care for any excuse Zayn might have had. Even if the injury came from an innocent event—which, given Calum’s history with Zayn, Calum did not believe for one second—Calum did not want to know it. Zayn’s business was no longer Calum’s concern. They were not friends. They were not even acquaintances. They were merely two people who had an explosive past between them. They were two people whose lives should have never again crossed. Calum had barely survived last time. He was not about to put himself in a position to allow history to repeat itself.

Calum sidestepped around Zayn, dancing out of Zayn’s reach when Zayn tried to grab his shoulder. He opened the door to his car and used it as a physical barrier between them while he climbed inside. When he started the engine, Zayn took a step forward as if to stop him. It was a fruitless endeavor. Calum put the car in drive and peeled out of the parking lot.

On his drive to the pizza parlor, Calum resolved to put any thoughts of Zayn out of his mind. He did not want the man to sour his mood, especially since he was going to spend time with Luke, who was the one person in Calum’s life that did not know Zayn had once done to him. Calum liked that Luke did not know of the humiliating horrors of Calum’s past. One day, Calum would tell him—Luke, as Calum’s friend, at the very least, deserved to know such an important part of Calum’s past—but that day was not today.

Thankfully, Calum spotted Luke’s car parked in its normal spot behind the pizza place, so he stopped his vehicle next to it. Even through the two car windows, Calum could see relief play uninhibited across Luke’s face. He looked like he had nearly given up hope on Calum, but Calum was glad that Luke held out a few more minutes. Simultaneously, they rolled down their respective windows so that they could speak to one another without getting out into the icy evening air.

“I got held up in class,” explained Calum, instantly. While he purposefully left Zayn out of his explanation, his excuse was not a lie. He had been running late when Zayn had hindered him more. He flashed Luke a grin, which was immediately returned. “Ever had Alberts? I swear he likes listening to himself talk.”

“Can’t say I have, but if he’s anything like Rush, I can imagine.”

Calum did not know who Rush was or even which department the professor belonged to, but the amusement dancing within Luke’s eyes made Calum’s heart skip a beat. It made Calum want to catch the emotion in a jar so he could pull it out whenever he was feeling down. It was a scary desire, admittedly, but no more scary than the feelings Calum harbored for Luke already.

A gust of cold air blew into Calum’s car. Calum shivered, only then remembering that there was a nice warm apartment waiting on them. There was no sense in tarrying about in the cold October weather.

“Let’s head back to my place. Sound good?” asked Calum.

He highly doubted Luke would turn down such an offer, but it was courteous for him to ask nonetheless. For all that Calum knew, Luke could have had plans for his evening. It wouldn’t be fair to keep Luke from those plans when Calum himself had kept Luke waiting at the pizza place long after the end of his shift.

But Calum’s worries were for nothing.

“Think Michael will let me in without pizza in hand?” asked Luke, grinning.

Calum laughed.

“Mike likes you well enough now to overlook any missing pizza—but I wouldn’t make it a habit.”

Luke chuckled as well, picking up on the humor saturating Calum’s voice. In silent agreement, as if their brains operated on the exact same wavelength, they rolled up their windows, and Calum put his car in reverse. He led Luke along familiar streets to his apartment building. When he arrived home, he parked in his usual spot. Luke pulled into the space next to him.

“Looks like you’re in luck,” said Calum, when he and Luke both exited their vehicles. “Michael was supposed to catch a ride home from Liam, and it doesn’t look like they’re here yet, so you won’t have to buy your way in with non-existent pizza.”

“I thought you said that Michael liked me well enough without pizza,” said Luke.

Calum shrugged, grinning.

“Better not to chance it as far as pizza is concerned. I can’t think of anything Michael loves more in the world—except maybe Ashton, but, well, the difference there is that Michael freely declares his love for pizza.”

Calum paused. The grin slipped from his lips as guilt set in the pit of his stomach. He kind of felt like he was being unfair to Michael. Ashton’s issues were as much at fault for the odd not-quite-lovers-but-more-than-friends status of Ashton and Michael’s relationship as Michael’s own were.

They headed inside of the building, a multistory structure built at least forty years ago that was capable of housing hundreds of tenants. The glass door squeaked when Calum pushed it open and held it so that Luke could enter before him. It was only a few feet over to the elevator that would take them up to Calum’s floor. The elevator itself, when they climbed inside, looked like it belonged in a different era. The walls were wood paneling. The button for the fourth floor was nearly chipped away from too many years of use. Calum pressed it.

“Michael and Ashton are complicated, I guess,” said Calum in the silence of the elevator as a peace offering for what he said a few minutes ago. It was the least he owed his best friends, even when they weren’t around.

Luke made a noise in the back of his throat. He looked over at Calum, his eyebrows raised. Something twinkled in his eyes, like a secret he was dying to tell but couldn’t voice.

“What relationship isn’t?”

And, well, Calum didn’t have an answer for him. Even if he would have had one, though, he would not have been able to offer it. The exact second the elevator doors split open on the fourth floor, all thoughts fled Calum’s mind. His entire body went ice cold and rigid. His breath caught in his throat.

Halfway up the hallway, the door to his apartment stood ajar.

Frigid fear washed over him. Michael wasn’t home. The only other person who had a key was Ashton. Either there was a break in or something happened to Ashton—or both—and either possibility brought heart-wrenching terror bubbling up in Calum’s chest.

Calum needed to know if Ashton was all right, assuming Ashton was even in the apartment, so he signaled to Luke to stay by the elevator while he went to check, but, of course, Luke didn’t listen. Truthfully, Calum was glad for Luke at his back as they neared the apartment. Calum glanced over his shoulder at Luke, saw him standing a step away, and took a deep breath.

Turning back to the door, he pushed it farther open so that he could see inside without actually having to enter the apartment. Calum was both relieved and terrified at the sight. As far as he could see, there was no intruder, which was the good part. There was only Ashton, and that was the bad part.

There, sitting in the floor with his back to the wall, was Ashton. He was a mess of a man. His entire body trembled, and he stared blankly at the floor between his feet.

Calum had never, ever seen anybody look so scared in his entire life. He shifted his weight, poised to enter the apartment. Underneath him, the floorboard creaked, and Ashton’s gaze fluttered up to meet Calum’s. His eyes were wide and frightened, his face as pale as the color of a half-moon hanging in the night sky. Nausea rose in the back of Calum’s throat at the broken fear plain on Ashton’s face.

The apartment was silent. The television was even muted, a sports program playing uninterrupted across the screen. Calum took a cautious step into the apartment. He took a quick look around to confirm his earlier assessment that there was no intruder. It still proved to be true, so Calum turned his attention to Ashton.

“What happened?” Calum asked, walking over to stand a few feet away from Ashton, which was as close as he braved to go without scaring Ashton. Luke remained in the doorway. “Why was the door open?”

It was easier to focus on the door than it was to blatantly ask why Ashton seemed two seconds away from becoming completely catatonic. Dozens of scenarios ran through Calum’s head, but he pushed them all aside. It would not do for him to get upset because of his overactive imagination if Ashton was merely having a bad day.

But Ashton did not say anything. He gazed blankly at Calum, and Calum had the fleeting wonder of whether Ashton was even conscious of his current surroundings. The faraway expression in Ashton’s eyes suggested his mind was anywhere except in the present. Calum wanted to reach down and shake him—to knock Ashton out of this terrifying stupor—but he resisted as he spotted the darkening bruise that encircled Ashton’s bicep. It was sickeningly shaped like a hand.

Bile rushed up Calum’s throat. He swallowed against it. Behind him, Luke must have made some kind of sudden movement, because Ashton noticeably stiffened and cowered back against the wall. Calum glanced over his shoulder at Luke, who stood rooted in the doorway with an apologetic expression clear on his face. Luke had obviously not meant to draw attention to himself.

Calum turned back to Ashton again. He needed to do something to help Ashton, but he wasn’t sure what that was. He needed a few minutes to collect his own thoughts before he tried to parse through whatever it was that had Ashton in such a terrifying state of being.

“Why don’t you go take a shower?” suggested Calum, gently, for lack of any other idea. “Some hot water might do you some good. You can use Michael’s toiletries. You know he won’t mind.”

Ashton slowly returned his gaze to Calum. There was a blank glint shining in his eyes. It was unsettling. Maybe Calum should have pressed Ashton for information now—should have maybe asked about the mysterious handprint bruised into Ashton’s skin—but that line of questioning seemed to ask for more than Ashton seemed up for giving. Calum took pity on his friend. Whoever it was that had been so cruel as to bruise Ashton was not here. Ashton was safe and could afford a little time to sort through his own thoughts before having to voice them to Calum—and, of course, Michael.

Besides, Calum sort of felt like Michael should be here, too, or maybe even instead of Calum himself. Michael always knew how to make Ashton feel safe and protected and loved, even if Michael himself wasn’t brave enough to admit to Ashton that he was head over heels in love with him. Ashton was always most loved when he was with Michael, and Ashton really, really looked like he needed some of that love right now.

“C’mon. It won’t do you any good sitting around in the floor,” said Calum. He extended his hand to help Ashton stand, and Ashton flinched at Calum’s movement. Calum’s heart jumped to his throat. He froze, making no other move toward Ashton. “Please, _Ash_.”

Maybe it was the sound of Ashton’s name or maybe it was the raw worry saturating Calum’s voice or maybe it was both of them taken together from one of Ashton’s best friends, but, whatever it was, Ashton took a deep breath then took Calum’s hand in the next second. Ashton’s palm was icy cold and trembling, but it was strong against Calum’s hand.

Calum grinned. It was a tiny, _tiny_ victory, but relief rushing through his veins. He pulled Ashton to his feet.

“I—” said Ashton, stopping almost immediately. He licked his bottom lip, nervous. He glanced at Luke over Calum’s shoulder then let his gaze drift back to Calum a beat later. His eyes were wide and hazel and watering. “I said no. I swear, I said no.”

Calum’s heart skipped a terrifying beat in his chest. Icy horror spread like wildfire across his skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Calum didn’t have a clue what, in particular, Ashton had said no to or why it would matter that Ashton had even said it in the first place, but this moment felt important. It felt monumental. Nausea welled up in the back of Calum’s throat once more. He had to swallow against it to speak. When he did, his voice shook.

“What d’you—what did you say no to?”

Ashton bit his lips together, his eyes filling with more tears until one finally spilled over and down his cheek. Then another did and another until Ashton was full-on crying. Calum instantly wished he could take his question back, because Ashton looked so broken in front of him, and Ashton was Calum’s rock. Ashton was one of the two people who had pulled Calum from the brink of oblivion. It didn’t set well at all in Calum’s stomach for the tables to be flipped as they were right now.

“I said no, and no means no,” said Ashton, broken and quiet and crying. “I can say that. I _can_ , but—but—”

Ashton stopped again, hiccuping over a cry. The ice that had settled over Calum’s body gripped at his heart. He didn’t want to know what Ashton couldn’t say, but he needed to know. He owed it to Ashton to be as good of a friend as Ashton was to him when Calum so desperately needed somebody to help him fight his battles when he was too weary to do so all by himself.

Calum saw a ghost of that very same defeat in Ashton’s eyes. His breath caught in his throat. He knew he needed to say something—maybe dare to ask what Ashton couldn’t say or maybe comfort Ashton instead and leave the fear for another time when Michael was there to catch Ashton when he fell—but his tongue felt like a paperweight in his mouth, and he couldn’t wrap it around a single word.

“They didn’t listen,” whispered Ashton in a manner that should have barely loud enough for Calum, standing right in front of him, to hear, yet his words seemed to echo in the dead silence of the room.

Calum’s heart stopped beating entirely. The world screeched to a halt, and ceased turning, and Calum really thought he might vomit this time as the realization barreled over him. Fear twisted in his stomach until it gave away to rage. Hot, unadulterated anger built up in Calum’s belly.

He didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but he hated them. He was going to find out who could be so monstrous as to reduce the kind and gentle soul that Ashton was into the broken shell of a man he was right now. Once he found them, he would make sure they never, ever touched Ashton again.

But that wasn’t something Calum could do now, not with Ashton crying and broken in front of him. What Calum needed to do was soothe Ashton, was to put him back together, but Calum couldn’t think of a single thing to say. His best friend was hurt, and he was helpless.

In the end, though, Luke became both Calum and Ashton’s saving grace. It shouldn’t have surprised Calum. On some level, it didn’t, because, ever since they met, Luke was there, filling in the empty spaces of Calum’s life that Calum hadn’t thought anybody would ever fit inside after how badly the farce of love had battered him the last time. Here Luke was once again inching into the empty spot that Calum didn’t know how to fill.

“We will listen to you, though. We won’t ever hurt you. We’re your friends, Ashton—at least, I know you consider Calum and Michael your friends, and I think of you as mine, even if you don’t think of me as yours.”

Ashton’s gaze darted to Luke, and Calum turned around to look at Luke, too. Luke was still standing in the doorway to the apartment like he knew he might frighten Ashton even more if he were to come any closer. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, but, otherwise, he stood tall, as if he were physically offering himself up as Ashton’s first line of defense against the monsters who had refused to obey the command in the word ‘no.’ Luke stared Ashton straight in the eyes as he continued to speak.

“I swear to you that, despite whoever made you believe otherwise, you can say no.”

Ashton drew in a ragged breath. Tears streamed down his face, following the crooked wet paths already forged across his pale cheeks. His bottom lip trembled. Doubt shined brightly in his eyes, like he wanted nothing more than to believe Luke’s promise but had all of the reasons in the world to not believe it.

“But I—I _did_. I said no,” said Ashton, barely louder than a whisper, “and they didn’t listen.”

Luke frowned so deeply that it seemed like it might permanently mar his handsome face. Ashton’s hand trembled more violently in Calum’s than it did moment before, and Calum turned back around to pull Ashton to him. Ashton fell willingly into Calum’s arms. He sobbed against Calum’s chest, loud and broken and nothing at all like the man who had once chased away Calum’s demons. Calum held him tightly, because Ashton was falling apart in Calum’s arms, and all this was all Calum could do to keep him together.

“But we will,” declared Calum, softly. “Mike and Luke and me, we’ll always listen, and we’ll make everybody else listen, too.”

“I want Michael,” said Ashton, still quiet and still broken.

His voice was muffled against Calum’s chest, but his words coherently loudly enough. Calum had an armful of Ashton. His phone was in his pocket, and he couldn’t get to it, so he glanced over his shoulder for Luke’s help, but Luke was already reaching for Ashton’s phone that lay on the kitchen counter and dialing Michael’s number. Luke waited a span of two seconds before Michael answered on the other side of the line.

“Hey, Michael? It’s Luke. You should come home. Ashton needs you.”

A rush of fondness welled up in Calum’s chest, clashing with the knotted worry already put there by Ashton in his arms. Calum loved Luke so, so much in this moment in time for being everything he needed to be for a friend as brand new as to him yet as important to Calum as Ashton was. Luke didn’t have to be here dealing with the broken pieces of Ashton. He didn’t have to offer kind words or the much needed promises.

Yet, Luke did without hesitation. He did it with so much conviction that Calum had to mentally remind himself that he had only known Luke for a short while and not forever. Luke fit so perfectly in Calum’s life—he got along with Calum’s friends so well that he considered them his own—that Calum could scarcely remember that Luke hadn’t always been in his life. That Calum had once existed oblivious to the beautiful human being that Luke was.

Faintly, Calum acknowledged that Zayn never would have done anything this evening that Luke had taken upon himself to do for Ashton. It wasn’t fair to compare Luke to Zayn. They had nothing whatsoever in common, except for how easily Calum had fallen for the both of them and that was on Calum, not on Luke.

Calum met Luke’s eyes, and Luke offered him a warm smile, and Calum knew that Luke wasn’t Zayn. Luke wouldn’t absolutely destroy him and break his heart like Zayn did. It might not have been kind of Calum to compare Luke to Zayn, but Calum did it anyway, because he appreciated Luke so much more for caring about him in a way that Zayn never did, not even in the beginning.


	10. The Merriest of Men

Ashton fell asleep that night in Michael’s arms, curled up in Michael’s bed with his back to the wall and his head resting on Michael’s shoulder. It was the place where Ashton felt the safest. Ashton needed all of the feeling of safety in the entire world, and Michael was doing his best to give Ashton exactly that.

Luke, on the other hand, turned down any offer to stay overnight at Calum’s apartment. Calum couldn’t say that he really blamed Luke for such a choice. If Calum had to choose between a lumpy couch and a nice bed, Calum would probably leave, too.

The next morning dawned bright and early. Calum rolled out of bed and padded to the kitchen, half-asleep and craving coffee like his lungs craved air. There was a pot already perked. Ashton sat listlessly at the kitchen table, hunched over his coffee. His palms were spread flat against the table on either side of his cup. His fingernails were blunt, like he had bitten, or maybe scratched, them down to the quick.

“Morning,” said Calum.

He grabbed a mug from the drainer and poured some warm coffee into it. He overestimated his coordination, though, and ended up spilling a dab on the counter, so he grabbed the dishrag from the sink to sop it up. Once the mess was cleaned, Calum joined Ashton at the table, sitting down across from him.

“How’d you sleep last night?”

Ashton raised his eyebrows at Calum, looking up at him through his eyelashes. He looked exhausted. There were bags underneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t gotten a single wink of sleep, though Calum himself had peeked into Michael’s room last night when he had gotten up to go to the toilet, and he had witnessed Ashton sound asleep in Michael’s protective embrace.

“I’m not going to the police,” said Ashton, “if that is what you are leading up to. I’ve already told Michael this morning.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” said Ashton. He sighed, properly looking up at Calum. Exhaustion was set deep in the lines on his face. Something dark twinkled in his eyes, like a bad memory or, maybe, a waking nightmare. “I can’t.”

“Somebody hurt you,” said Calum. He didn’t try to lie to Ashton again. It hadn’t worked very well the first time. He owed it to Ashton to be truthful, and he really had been gearing up for this conversation. “They should have to pay for what they did.”

Ashton smiled. It was twisted, like it didn’t fit on his face at all, and the sight of it brought cold chills up and down Calum’s arm.

“The world doesn’t quite work like that,” said Ashton, dully.

“But—”

“But _nothing_ ,” snapped Ashton. He curled his hands into fists. His entire body went rigid. “It isn’t that simple, okay? I can’t go to the police, and that’s that.”

Calum drew in a shaky breath. Every fiber of being wanted to fight Ashton on this. Every single part of Calum wanted to grab Ashton by the arm and march him straight to the police station and make Ashton tell the cops what happened so that the horrible monster who reduced Ashton to a shell of a human being would face punishment for their cruelty.

Yet, Calum didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t, not in the face of Ashton’s conviction and not with the note of fear in Ashton’s voice. Calum wasn’t heartless. He wouldn’t force Ashton to do something he didn’t want to do. He wasn’t a monster.

“I just want you safe,” said Calum, quietly. He bowed his head in deference to Ashton. “That’s all Mike and I want—just you safe—and, well, happy would be good, too.”

Ashton bit his lips together and averted his gaze to the cup of coffee in front of him. He was no longer brave enough to look Calum in the eyes. The fight went out of him, too. His body relaxed into a submissive posture, his shoulders curled in. He looked like the slightest gust of wind could knock him over right now. More than that, though, he looked like he needed Michael’s arms around him again to make him feel safe.

So Calum dropped the subject. He left his cup of coffee untouched on the table, and he went to wake Michael up. If Ashton couldn’t be safe by going to police, then he should feel safe in Michael’s arms.

Calum never asked Ashton to go to the police again. Maybe he should have. Maybe he should have kept asking Ashton to go to the police until Ashton finally got sick of Calum’s nagging and went. But Calum wasn’t going to bully Ashton, not when Ashton was so hurt and vulnerable and certainly not when Ashton was one of Calum’s best friends. Instead, Calum vowed to keep a close eye on Ashton and protect Ashton himself.

As the days passed and Ashton’s trembling confession became old news, Ashton ceased coming off as vulnerable as he did when he begged for Michael in Calum’s arms. He still slept with his back to the wall, his head resting on Michael’s shoulder. He still woke up at the crack of dawn, poured a cup of coffee he didn’t drink, and sat at the kitchen table until somebody else in the apartment woke up, too. He hardly ever left the apartment, except to go to class and to go work in the evenings. Sometimes, though, he worked late, dragging himself into the apartment so far into the night that Calum himself had already gone to bed but never Michael, who always waited up for Ashton to return home to him where Ashton belonged—never mind the fact that Ashton’s name was still on the lease agreement for the apartment next door. 

The night of Josh’s Halloween party arrived quicker than Calum anticipated. Calum stood in the bathroom putting on the final touches to his costume. Michael knocked on the door. He, too, was dressed for the impending party. He had a pair of red devil horns perched on top of his head, the band of the accessory hidden behind his ears. His face mask hung around his neck. The only thing missing from his costume was his red cape. It was thrown across the back of a kitchen chair for him to grab before they left.

“Is that real chain mail?” asked Michael, stepping forward to pick at the mesh of small metallic rings that composed the shirt of Calum’s costume. He chuckled to himself as he ran his finger along the links. “I thought you were going to be Robin Hood? You’ve had that green tunic ordered since May, but I don’t think he wore a hauberk.”

“I’d say that I’m impressed with your knowledge of the correct terminology, but let’s face it. I’m not. I am also not impressed that you don’t know that I’m not Robin Hood.”

Calum paused, considering the white leggings he had wrestled himself into a few moments earlier. They were already chaffing in uncomfortable places. He should have probably forgone them, but he had spent so much time shimmying into them that it seemed like a waste to remove them.

“To answer your question, no, it isn’t real. Obviously. But it’s a pretty good alternative.”

Michael smoothed a run of links.

“Well,” he said, “whatever you were going for, you look dashing. You’re going to totally knock Luke’s socks off.”

Calum rolled his eyes, his cheeks heating up. He grabbed the green floppy hat off the back of the toilet where he had safely stowed it away earlier and stretched it around his head. He shoved it down over his ears.

“Luke and I are just friends.”

“Sure,” said Michael, as if he were really agreeing with Calum. The smirk on his face, though, belied his true intentions. “I go out of my way to visit my friends at their workplaces every single day. Also, I smile every time I say all of my friends’ names, and—”

“We’re going to be late,” interrupted Calum. His cheeks were on fire, and he just wanted Michael to shut up about how obvious it was that he was gone for Luke. Calum _knew_ he was gone for Luke. He did. It was scary enough to deal with on his own. He didn’t need Michael to make light of it. “We promised Ashton we’d meet him at the party in, like, twenty minutes.”

Michael frowned, hearing the hurt in Calum’s voice.

“For what it’s worth, I hope you knock Luke’s socks off,” he said, chastised. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” said Calum, and he did. Michael was always the first one to root for Calum. He was always the first one to push Calum out of his comfort zone, and he was always the first one there to catch Calum when he fell. Michael was a good friend. “Really, though, we should be going. I know you want to see Ashton, and I told Luke to meet us there, too.”

Michael sighed. It was a loaded response, like he had so much more he wanted to say. He let Calum drop the conversation as they exited the bathroom. Michael grabbed his cape on the way out of the apartment.

They took the bus to Josh and Ashley’s apartment. It took about half of an hour to get there. As a result, they were at least fifteen minutes later than they had promised to meet Ashton. He was waiting for them on the sidewalk in front of the building when Michael and Calum climbed off the bus at a stop at the end of the street.

Once Ashton came into view, Calum groaned and shook his head. Michael, on the other hand, grinned proudly. He strutted right up to Ashton, stopping right in front of him and leaving Calum to catch up to them both.

“You said you would, and you did,” said Michael, happily.

“You asked, and I said yes,” replied Ashton, gesturing to his costume. He was dressed in a long white robe. He had a pair of white angel wings attached to his back. A tinsel halo sat crooked on top of his head. He looked nothing short of genuinely angelic. “Do you like it?”

Michael smiled, soft and fond and so gone for Ashton that it was almost palpable in the air between them.

“Yeah,” he said, gently. “I do.”

Ashton beamed like it was the greatest compliment in the entire world. Calum had no doubt that, to Ashton, it actually was. Ashton held out his hand to Michael, offering to lead him inside to the party. Michael placed his hand in Ashton’s, and the pair walked off, leaving Calum to trail after them. It was only when they stepped into the elevator that would take them up to the top floor that Ashton formally acknowledged Calum. It was as if Michael took up every ounce of Ashton’s attention, and there was no room for anything else.

“I like your hat, Cal. Very Robin Hood-esque.”

“It’s not supposed to be—”

“Just give it up, Cal,” said Michael, grinning nefariously. It matched the grin on Ashton’s lips. “You dressed up as Robin Hood.”

“But I have a sword and a shield!” groaned Calum. He pointed to the plastic items strapped to his back. “Not exactly Robin Hood material.”

The identical grins on Michael’s and Ashton’s faces didn’t wane. The elevator came to a stop to the top floor. The doors split open, and Calum gave up his argument in favor of following Ashton and Michael down the hall to the party. Michael was right. It was a pointless argument anyway.

Josh and Ashley’s apartment was located at the end of the hall. The door stood wide open. Inside, the apartment was crammed full of people. Loud music filled the space, and everybody was dressed in costumes, having the time of their lives.

The main attraction of the party was on the roof. Calum, Ashton, and Michael wound their way through the apartment to the steps outside that led up. Ashley waved at them as they passed through the kitchen. Calum thought he glimpsed a flash of Harry in the crowd of people in there. He didn’t linger long enough inside to tell for certain.

Up on the roof, black and orange Halloween decorations set the mood of the party. Strands of twinkle lights glowed a soft purple, and they were hung across the length of the roof. They blanketed the rooftop with an almost magical shine. It was chillier up here than in the warm apartment, but there were still a lot of people partying on the rooftop. A food table was set up at one end of the roof. Another table of drinks stood feet away from it.  

Ashton grabbed Michael’s hand and dragged him toward the drink table almost immediately. Calum followed after them. While Ashton and Michael made a bee line for the row of alcoholic beverages on one end of the table, Calum headed for the big bowl of green punch instead. He was a little wary of alcohol after the carnival night. He planned to get drunk tonight, but he didn’t plan to get blackout drunk like he had done then.

The punch tasted like pineapples and limes and vodka, and it had a little more kick to it than Calum had anticipated. It burned a little on the way down, and the iciness of the drink itself made him belch the fumes of the alcohol right back up. All in all, he liked it the punch. After he downed his first, he poured himself a second cup and drank that one, too.

“Wondered when the pair of you were gonna turn up,” said Liam, sauntering over to the drink table. He stood in the middle of it, facing Calum but looking over at Ashton and Michael. He nodded at Ashton in particular. The red wig of his Mad Hatter costume sat askew on his head, but the tall top hat held it firmly in face. “‘Course Ash himself didn’t turn up ‘til about five minutes before you two did. What kept you?”

Ashton looked up from the shot glass he was trying to pour tequila into. He shrugged at Liam then dropped his attention back to the alcohol. His hand shook a little as he poured the drink, and the alcohol spilled over onto the vinyl tablecloth.

“Had to finish up something for work,” he said, distractedly.

He didn’t bother cleaning up his mess, not that it mattered much with the rest of the alcohol spilled on the table. He passed the shot of tequila to Michael then grabbed another glass. His hand was steadier this time as he poured the alcohol into the new shot glass. Liam hummed in his throat.

“Could’ve sworn the store was closed today,” said Liam, but he didn’t question Ashton any farther. Instead, he turned to Calum. He licked his bottom lip, smudging away more of the white paint that covered his face. He had obviously been at the party for a while. His face paint was already cracking. “Gimme a cup of punch, if you don’t mind, Cal. It’s got a nasty kick to it, but that goes away after the fourth or fifth cup.”

Calum did as asked, mostly because he suspected Liam might spill the entire bowl of punch if he were to attempt it himself. Calum ladled some green punch into a new cup then carefully handed it to Liam. He waited until it was firmly in Liam’s grasp before he let go. Liam tossed it back in the next second. He displayed more coordination than a man should have after more than five cups of the vodka punch.

When Liam reached for the ladle to refill his cup, Calum didn’t offer his help. As it turned out, Liam didn’t need assistance. He filled the cup up to the brim than drank it back down.

“What’s got you drinking so heavy anyway?” asked Calum.

Liam shrugged. He poured another cup of punch, but he didn’t drink this one. He also didn’t look Calum in the eyes.

“Wasn’t sure I was even going to come here, if you want me to be honest,” said Liam, with a sigh. It wasn’t really an answer to Calum’s question, but he didn’t stick around any longer for Calum to prod him more. “Think I’ll go find Harry and get out of here.”

“Harry?” repeated Calum as Liam walked off.

Liam stopped and turned around to face Calum. A grin slowly worked its way onto his lips. Amusement shined on his face.

“Yeah, you know slow-talking, curly headed Harry? Your coworker?”

“Oh,” said Calum, taken aback. “I didn’t realize you knew Harry.”

“Known him for years,” said Liam, walking backward toward the exit that would lead back down to Josh and Ashley’s apartment. It was an impressive feat for Liam to accomplish with so much alcohol strumming through his system, especially without running into anybody or stumbling to the ground. “The world is a lot smaller than you think.”

Then Liam turned on his heel and walked properly off, disappearing through a crowd of people. Calum was left alone by the punch bowl wondering how he had worked with Harry for so long and hadn’t known Harry was one of Liam’s friends. It probably meant nothing. Liam was friends with so many people that Calum hardly kept up with any of them.

Still, though, a tiny part of Calum couldn’t help but wonder how many friends Liam and Harry had in common and whether or not Zayn could wiggle his way back into Calum’s life through that connection. Calum had done good to distance himself from Zayn. He liked to think that he was doing a pretty good job at bluffing to Zayn that he wasn’t afraid of Zayn anymore. Truthfully, Calum wasn’t sure exactly what he would do if Zayn were to gain the upper hand over him once more—if he would fight Zayn with everything he had or if he would lay down and take it like he used to.

“In need of any Merry Men?” asked a familiar voice.

Calum’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. He spun around to see Luke grinning at him, and any thoughts of Zayn fled Calum’s mind. It was like Luke himself was Calum’s personal amulet against Zayn and the horrible fears Zayn had branded into Calum’s heart. Calum was glad for the distraction.

Luke was dressed as a zombie. He was wrapped haphazardly in large strips of gauze. Any exposed skin was dabbed with fake blood. He had done a good job of costume. Calum fondly recalled watching zombie movies with Luke the first time they hung out together and wondered whether that night had any influence in Luke’s costume decision. He liked to think it did.

“More like in need of a sign that says I’m not Robin Hood,” said Calum, with a groan.

Luke quirked a hesitant smile in Calum’s direction as if afraid he had offended Calum, but he shouldn’t have worried. Calum barked out a laugh to try to reassure Luke. He slung an arm around Luke’s shoulder. The sword and shield combination on his back clattered loudly. Luke chuckled along with Calum.

The night air was cool, but Luke was a warm body pressed against Calum’s side. The back of Calum’s mouth still tasted fumy like the vodka punch he had drank. He was not drunk or even the slightest bit buzzed, but he thought he could get drunk off Luke’s presence right next to him.

“You two feel like drinking? Or are you just going to stand next to the punch all night?” asked Michael from the opposite end of the table.

There was a tone of a challenge in Michael’s voice. It matched the mischievousness that twinkled in his eyes. Next to him, Ashton grinned brightly at Calum and Luke. He swayed uncertainly on his feet, but he waved the pair of them over.

Luke gently shrugged out from underneath Calum’s arm to take his hand, and he led Calum closer to Michael and Ashton. Calum was extremely aware of how warm Luke’s hand was pressed against his own. He never wanted to let go. Luke seemed to have similar qualms, so their hands remained clasped together even as they came to a stop.

Ashton reached for the nearest bottle of alcohol that was only about two-thirds full of the dark golden liquid. Four shot glasses were set out in a row, making it obvious that neither Michael nor Ashton had expected Calum to turn down the challenge. Ashton began to fill the glasses.

“That isn’t tequila, is it?” asked Calum, doubtfully.

His latest tango with tequila left him with a gaping hole in his memory and a massive hangover the next morning. He did not care to repeat the carnival night and vowed to swear off tequila until he could remember exactly what happened then. It didn’t help matters that just the thought of tequila made him a little nauseated.

“Rum. Josh is hoarding the good tequila. He set out one good bottle, which Mike and I finished the last of, and the rest is the silver, and I hate that stuff,” answered Ashton. He topped off the last glass then set the bottle aside. He raised his shot glass to his mouth, motioning for the others to do the same with his other hands. “Bottoms up!”

Calum grabbed the nearest shot glass with his free hand. He lifted it to his lips and threw back the alcohol. It burned all the way down, but it was nowhere near as warm as Luke’s hand still grasped in Calum’s own.

One shot became two which was quickly followed by a third then a fourth until Calum forgot what number they were on. It ceased to matter what his costume was actually supposed to be or what it meant that Liam and Harry were friends or even how much the straight alcohol continued to burn all the way down Calum’s throat with each shot. All that Calum cared about was Luke’s hand in his and the feeling of anticipation in the pit of his stomach as Ashton poured the next round.

Underneath the sparkly glow of the lights, where the stars high in the night sky were just out of reach, Calum prayed the evening would never end.

Soon, the bottle of rum was empty. Calum was gloriously drunk, and so were his companions. A giggling Michael dragged Ashton away from the table before Ashton could reach for the silver tequila, because even as inebriated as Michael was, Michael knew better than to think Ashton wanted the actual drink instead of just an enhanced state of drunkenness. Michael disappeared with Ashton into a throng of people, all dressed up and drunk and high on life.

Calum was left alone with Luke. He turned to face Luke. In the bare spaces between strips of gauze, Luke’s cheeks were rosy red from all of the alcohol. Their hands were still clasped together. Calum felt like maybe Luke’s touch was the only grounding him to this moment in time. Luke wore a dopey grin on his lips, and Calum was overcome with the urge to kiss it away…

So he did.

Luke’s mouth tasted like rum, but that was only to be expected given the number of shots he had ingested at Ashton’s insistence. Calum didn’t mind the taste—he doubted his mouth tasted any different—and his eyes fluttered closed at the mere brush of their lips.

Kissing Luke was beautiful. It felt like every moment in Calum’s life had led up to this right here, and he was complete with his lips pressed against Luke’s. Something tugged at the back of Calum’s mind that this was familiar, but he could think of nothing more than the hot press of lips against his and of the wet tongue tangled with his own. It was the closest to heaven Calum had ever experienced. He hated for it to end.

But it did. Luke froze against him, his entire body going rigid. Calum’s heart sank. Luke pulled away, his eyes wide and filled with horror. Calum felt sick at his stomach. He thought he might vomit all over Luke’s shoes right here. This was not how Luke was supposed to react to Calum kissing him.

“I _can’t_ ,” said Luke.

Nothing in the entire world had ever sobered Calum quicker than those two horrible words. Luke looked imploringly at Calum, begging him to understand, but Calum dropped his eyes to the concrete floor of the roof. He could not handle watching the inevitable. Luke was about to tear Calum’s heart into hundreds of tiny little pieces—even more than he already had—and Calum might just throw up all of the alcohol he had drank down.

“I’m, uh, seeing somebody, Calum. It’s—it’s complicated.”

To Luke’s credit, he sounded apologetic. Rejection, however, burned harshly in Calum’s chest, and he took a step back. He had to put distance between himself and Luke. He was a fool. He had let his lovesick eyes get the best of him like a teenager falling in love for the first time, but he had been in love before. He had read all the signs wrong. Luke was interested in nothing more than just friendship. He was already in a relationship with somebody and was, probably, already in love with whomever the lucky person was, and that person was absolutely not Calum.

“I’m, uh—” _sorry_ , Calum wanted to say, but it didn’t feel right on his tongue, so he settled for, “really drunk. I’ll just, uh—go.”

The alcohol no longer made him feel on top of the world. In the wake of such a devastating rejection, during which he had discovered that his love for Luke was unreciprocated, he felt like the tiny bit of sand in the hourglass that never quite dropped down to join the others: incomplete, suspended, and lonely. He could not stand there on the rooftop with Luke where the rejection was so real. He had to get away.

Luke called after him, but Calum did not look back. He was proud that his trembling legs did not buckle under him. He felt like a fool. He had fallen in love with the first man who had been nice to him in the wake of Zayn, and he had let his naivety blind him. He had perverted the precious friendship he had with Luke with fantasies of love that had terrified him. If anything, Luke’s rejection only proved how much Calum was not yet ready to open his heart up to somebody. If Calum couldn’t see that Luke was off-limits, he couldn’t trust himself to fall in love with anybody.  

The party was still going strong inside of the apartment when Calum climbed back through the fire escape. He nearly plowed over Harry in his haste to get away from Luke. That was just how Calum’s luck worked. The red plastic cup tumbled from Harry’s grasp, spilling brownish yellow beer across the tiled floor of the living room. Harry abandoned it to catch Calum before Calum could stumble face-first to the ground.

“Steady there,” said Harry.

He was considerably less drunk than Calum, which was probably because beer was the strongest alcohol he had drank the entire evening. He had certainly not engaged in a drink-off with Michael and Ashton. The shiny necklace of Harry’s Egyptian pharaoh costume glistened against the overhead lights. At some point long before now, Harry had abandoned the elaborate headdress so his dark curls hair stuck up in every direction. Calum vaguely wondered where Liam was.

“You don’t look so good, man,” added Harry.

Calum could hear the rattling of the metal steps of the fire escape behind him, and that meant Luke had possibly followed him. He had no desire to allow his battered heart to take another beating so soon after Luke’s rejection. He knew it was rude of him to fault Luke for not retuning his feelings, but he was drunk and hurt. Calum wanted nothing more than to just go home to his comfortable bed and sleep away the rest of his drunkenness. He would give just about anything to wake up the next morning without remembering the kiss or how it felt when his world shattered right before his eyes with those two simple words that had fallen from Luke’s lips.

So Calum sidestepped around Harry and fled the apartment as if it were on fire. This had turned out to be the worst Halloween he had ever experienced. His heart hurt the entire way home.


	11. A Horror Story

Calum was still drunk when he returned to his apartment. He stumbled blindly through his apartment without bothering to flip on any lights. It was oddly poetic, he thought in his drunken state, to stagger through the empty darkness with his heart heavy with hurt. Between the darkness and his drunkenness, he tripped over the sofa table outside of his bedroom and nearly fell flat on his face.

Pain radiated through his foot, taking precedence over the ache in his heart for a brief moment. Calum cursed loudly, his voice echoing off the quiet walls. He clutched his foot between his hands as he tried to balance on his other leg. Gradually, the pain began to diminish. He let go of it then tested his weight upon it. Sharp tendrils of pain still resonated from the tip of his toes, but he gritted his teeth and bore his weight down upon it, limping his way into his bedroom.

Inside, the room was pitch black. Calum didn’t bother with the light switch in here, either. He kicked off his shoes near the door then limped his way to his bed. He stripped out of his costume, leaving it in a ball in the floor in the corner of his room. He slipped into his sleeping shirt then fell face-first into his pillow.

His heart felt heavy in his chest, like the aching pain was too much for it to handle. Calum turned over on his side and curled up in a ball. He stared straight ahead of him at the darkness and wondered how he had been so blind-sighted—how he had let himself take a scary chance on love and hadn’t even realize that Luke was already dating somebody else.

Sleep didn’t come for a long, long time, and when it did, Calum didn’t dream. He woke up the next morning feel like he hadn’t slept a single wink. His head pounded with a hangover, but it took a backseat to the nearly all-encompassing pain aching in his heart from Luke’s rejection. Unfortunately, the alcohol from last night haven’t wiped Calum’s memory clean of those two awful words that had fallen from Luke’s lips and had devastated Calum’s entire world.

“Hey,” said Michael, appearing in the doorway of Calum’s bedroom.

Calum groaned in response. He buried his face in the pillow. He didn’t want to hear what Michael might have had to say—what Michael might have had to ask about the way Calum had left Josh’s Halloween party last night like the place was on fire.

But Calum should have known better than to think so callously of his best friend.

“Ashton made some waffles for breakfast. Want some?”

Michael’s voice was so soft. It washed over Calum like the first licks of a warm ocean wave. Calum felt guilty for the way he left things last night with Luke—for not letting Luke explain whatever it was that was complicated about loving somebody else. He felt guilty now, too, for thinking the worst of Michael.

“Did he put strawberries in them?”

“Strawberries are out of season,” said Michael. “But he did put half of a bag of chocolate chips in them for you.”

“Tell Ashton I love him.”

“Tell him yourself,” said Michael. “Now, stop feeling sorry for yourself all alone in your room, or neither Ashton nor I will be kind enough to continue to refrain from asking you what the hell happened last night.”

Calum laughed, humorlessly, because as unfair as his first assessment of Michael this morning was, it wasn’t too far off the mark. Michael and Ashton both have always had Calum’s back. Part of that had always been knowing when Calum needed time to himself and knowing when to press Calum to talk. This time, it seemed, they were going with the former.

“That’s a promise, not a threat,” said Michael, shaking his head in disapproval even as he smiled at Calum. “C’mon. Get out of bed. The waffles are getting cold.”

Calum’s mouth watered in anticipation. There were many things at which Ashton excelled. He could play just about any musical instrument he picked up. When Michael was spitting mad, Ashton had a knack for calming him in a matter of seconds. Ashton could even sweet-talk the lady who lives down the hall to kindly remember to keep her cat in her apartment instead of allowing it out in the hallway where it messed with Ashton’s allergies.

Perhaps Calum’s favorite thing about Ashton was his ability to cook. Ashton had grown up taking care of his younger siblings, so he had learned to cook out of necessity. Now, he sent money home to his siblings and cooked for Michael and Calum instead.

“Didn’t think we’d see you before noon,” greeted Ashton when Calum stumbled into the kitchen with a dull ache still in his foot.

Ashton had cup of black coffee setting partially drank on the table in front of him. It was his surefire way to fight any hangover. After Josh’s party, Ashton was certainly nursing a hangover this morning. They all were.

“I was promised waffles,” mumbled Calum.

He staggered his way over to the coffee pot where, thankfully waiting for him, was just enough coffee for one more cup. He emptied it out then carried his cup over to the table and sat down next to Ashton. A plate of waffles set untouched in the middle of the table, so Calum claimed them and scooted the plate closer to himself. He picked up the fork then started to dig in.

Michael and Ashton were already halfway through their own plates of waffles, which suggested they had had enough time to talk about how to approach Calum about running off last night with no notice. Calum knew Michael and Ashton trusted him. He did. He also knew that it wasn’t fair of him to skip out on Josh’s party without so much of a goodbye to Ashton and Michael to let them know he was okay and not in trouble. The thing is, as much as Calum appreciated the fact that Michael and Ashton trusted him rather than treating him like a fragile human being in the aftermath of Zayn, he was even more thankful that they cared enough about him to take care of him when he needed them.

Now that Zayn was back in town and now that Zayn had frequent contacted Calum over the past few weeks, Calum wouldn’t blame Michael and Ashton if they were to give him the third-degree this morning for disappearing. They had sworn they would protect Calum from Zayn in ways that the law never could. They couldn’t do that if Calum ran off without telling them. Zayn was already every bit capable of getting to Calum, even with Michael and Ashton’s protection. Calum didn’t need to go around making it any easier.

“Sorry I ran off last night,” said Calum, speaking mostly to his waffles, because they were easier to face than the disappointed looks of Ashton and Michael. “I should have told you I was leaving.”

“We’re not your keepers, Cal,” said Michael, gently. “If you want to leave a party, you can do so whenever you want.”

“Besides,” said Ashton, “we, uh, ran into Luke, and he—he said you’d left.”

Calum looked up at Ashton with a question ready on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to know more. If he wanted to know how long Luke had stayed after Calum had left. Or if Luke had met up with somebody else, this elusive significant other, after Calum was out of the picture. Or if Luke had even said anything about Calum at all to Michael and Ashton last night.

In the end, Calum didn’t ask, because Michael spoke instead.

“Did you, uh, know that he was seeing somebody? Before last night, that is.”

An invisible hand clenched around Calum’s heart. He dropped his gaze back to the waffles in front of him, no longer as eager to eat them as he had once been. His stomach churned. If he were to open his mouth to speak, he was almost certain he would vomit. He shook his head.

“Didn’t think you did,” said Michael with a sigh. “We didn’t, either, if it helps.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry,” said Ashton.

He frowned like it was a personal travesty to him that Calum’s heart was aching over Luke. Calum had never admitted out loud how fond he had grown of Luke or how easily he was falling in love with Luke. Feelings like that were hard enough to keep safe in his own mind. He wasn’t ever brave enough to admit them out loud, because that would make them irretrievably true. Feelings like that opened people up to heartbreak.

It seemed, though, that Calum didn’t need to say anything out loud to his best friends. His feelings for Luke were obvious. Is also seemed, unfortunately, that unspoken feelings hurt opened a person up to just as much pain.

“We really thought he was into you, too,” said Ashton. “He was always so kind, and he looked at like you like—”

Ashton hesitated, glancing at Michael for a fraction of a second.

“He looked at you like you would think somebody in love would look at another person. He looked at you like you were the world.”

“You must have been seeing things,” said Calum, not unkindly. He pushed his plate away from him then, after a second, stood up. “I think I’m going to go for a run. Need to clear my head a bit.”

Ashton opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with Calum and convince Calum to stay here and talk everything out. Calum didn’t want that. He wanted to stop hurting. Talking about it—talking about how everybody, even Calum himself, had thought that Luke might have loved Calum as much as Calum loved him—only made him hurt more.

“Want some company?” asked Michael, interrupting Ashton, because he was being a good friend to Calum.

Calum snorted, eyeing Michael.

“You offering?”

“No,” said Michael. He shook his head at Calum like Calum should have known better. Truthfully, Calum did. “Just thought Ashton might run with you.”

“I can’t,” said Ashton, grimacing. “I’ve to, uh, work.”

“This early?” asked Michael, turning to him.

“All day,” corrected Ashton.

“But I thought that the music store was closed this weekend for minor renovations. It’s the first Saturday of the month,” said Michael. “We were supposed to marathon that new sci-fi series all day.”

“Sorry,” said Ashton. He truly sounded apologetic. He threw back the rest of the coffee in his cup then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I really need the money.”

Michael sighed, but he didn’t argue any farther.

“I understand,” he said. “We can start the marathon tonight after you get off then finish it tomorrow.”

Ashton hesitated.

“I’ll probably be working late tonight.”

“At a music store?” prodded Michael.

“Mike,” snapped Ashton, uncharacteristically harsh.

Michael snapped his mouth shut, recoiling from Ashton. Calum watched all of Michael’s defense go up right before his eyes. Ashton had to see them, too.

“I’ll just watch it by myself then,” said Michael, quietly. He stood up from the table, his waffle half-eaten and his cup of sweetened coffee nearly full. He didn’t look at Ashton at all. When he spoke, it was obviously directed at Calum. “Lock up when you leave, all right? And take your keys. I’m not getting up to let you back in.”

Then Michael left the kitchen, his shoulders hunched like the weight of the world rested upon them. He headed straight for the safety of his bedroom and shut the door after him. Calum heard the quiet click of the lock a second later.

He turned to Ashton, who was staring at Michael’s closed bedroom door like it was personally responsible for chasing Michael away from him. There was a frown etched deep into his lips. He looked half-tempted to go bang on Michael’s door so that he could fall to his knees and apologize to Michael for being so short with him when all Michael had wanted was to waste away the day with him.

“Is there something you two aren’t telling me?” asked Calum.

Ashton jumped, startled, like he had forgotten Calum was even in the same room.

“Us? No, we’ve got no secrets.”

Except by the way Ashton backed away from Calum like a scared animal suggested that there was in fact a secret that Ashton didn’t want to share. Calum understood secrets and the appeal of keeping them. He did, but he didn’t understand what Ashton and Michael might have to keep from him. The three of them, they told each other everything. Ashton and Michael were the only people in the entire world who knew the intricate details of every single thing Zayn did to Calum. Surely, with trust like that, there could be no room for secrets between all of them.

The problem with Calum’s curiosity, however, was that Ashton wasn’t in the mood to stick around to satisfy it.

“I should get going,” said Ashton, backing toward the door. “Sorry about leaving you with the dishes. I told Liam I’d help him move some furniture around in his room this morning before work.”

Ashton was gone from the apartment before Calum could even offer him a farewell. Calum stared after him for a moment, feeling at a loss for everything that had in only a few span of moments. He had witnessed it all, but he felt like he had missed the most important part. He sighed.

Between Luke last night and Michael and Ashton this morning, Calum really needed a good run. It was his go-to device of recovery. In the aftermath of his breakup with Zayn months earlier, Calum must have run every city street five times. For him, there was nothing more therapeutic than his feet pounding against the concrete sidewalks underneath the bright sun.

So with Ashton gone and Michael locked away in his bedroom, Calum grabbed his keys and left the apartment. Outside, it was a cool November morning. The chilly air cut straight through his clothes, but he would warm up quickly enough. He did a couple of quick stretches before he took off running.

He didn’t have a destination in mind. He never did when he went on these runs. He just navigated the familiar streets of his city as he desired, taking some corners ignoring others and stopping at every intersection that he caught the traffic light on green.

Autumn blanketed the city streets and building. It foretold the harsh winter yet to come. October of this year had already been colder than usual. The weather forecast did not seem to suggest November would be any warmer. Calum dreaded the brutally cold days and nights ahead.

When Calum rounded the police station at the other end of the city, he looped back toward his apartment. Any farther in the other direction and he would soon reach the open countryside. In the past, Calum dared to run even farther than the city limits, but, today, he was starting to get tired. He suddenly wanted to be back home in his apartment where it was nice and warm and he could drink hot chocolate underneath a pile of blankets with Michael as they marathoned the day away in front of the television.

As much as running helped to clear Calum’s mind, there was nothing more comforting than curling up in the arms of his best friend as he nursed a heartbreak.

He took an alternate route back for a nice change of scenery. This one took him by the university where, behind the gymnasium, there were a few coke machines. He usually made it a point to stop and buy a bottle of water to hydrate himself in the middle of his run. He dug into his pockets for the correct change, fed it to the nearest machine, and collected the bottle of water it dispensed.

He downed half of the water in one go. The liquid slid smoothly down his throat. He was sweating by now. The cold chill of the air felt heavenly against his heated cheeks. His warm breaths were crystal white puffs in the icy air. He felt lighter than he had since he had left Luke on Josh’s rooftop last night. His run had done what it was meant to do.

But, unfortunately, it wasn’t to last.

“You look tired,” said a familiar voice.

Calum groaned inwardly. His heart stuttered in his chest. He tightened his grip on the bottle of water as he turned around. There Zayn was, like Calum had expected, leaning against the side of the gymnasium as if he had been waiting on a friend this whole time. He wore a heavy black jacket. His hands were stuffed into the pockets. A blue toboggan hat covered his head, but a few strands of his dark hair peeked out from underneath it. He looked warm, friendly, and inviting—everything Calum knew from experience he was not.

“I can give you a ride home.”

Calum barked out a laugh. It was harsh sound. It was every bit as humorless as Calum himself felt.

“That would imply you either already know where I live or that I’m going to tell you—neither of which I like.”

Zayn raised his eyebrows in response, a gesture meant to convey offense, like Calum’s hostility was a surprise to him. A smirk slowly worked its way across Zayn’s lips. It made him look dangerous more than anything else.

A heavy lead weight settled at the bottom of Calum’s stomach. Calum’s mind screamed _run!_ , but Calum’s feet were glued to the pavement. Part of him wanted to see the monster that Zayn was rise again, because Zayn had been nothing but cordial, though uncomfortably persistent, over the past few weeks. Calum was half afraid the monster he had made Zayn out to be wasn’t who Zayn was at all.

Even worse, Calum was half afraid that, maybe, his own mind had made everything up—except he knew he hadn’t. He couldn’t have. Michael and Ashton were daily reminders of everything Calum survived at the hands of Zayn. Nobody made up horror stories about themselves.

“You’ve always spoken your mind,” said Zayn, still smirking. “That’s what I like about you.”

There it was, what Calum wanted: the slightest of reminders that Zayn really was a monster. The truth of it all is that Zayn hated it when Calum ran his mouth. He hated it when Calum fought back. He hated it so much he blackened Calum’s eyes and bruised Calum’s ribs and poisoned Calum’s heart with fear.

The key to being Zayn’s particular type of monster was patience. Zayn knew how to play his cards just right to win the game. He knew how to bide his time. He knew how to break a person down bit by bit until there was nothing left except a shell of a human being.

Something deep inside of Calum knew that Zayn was in the middle of another game. It made the hairs on the back of Calum’s neck stand straight up. Calum had survived the monster that was Zayn once. He wasn’t about to see if he could do it again.

“You know what I like about you? When you’re as far away from me as you can get and then some,” snapped Calum.

Anger built up in his chest like a wildfire, and it gained momentum the longer he stood underneath Zayn’s smirk. Almost two years of abuses, of lying down and taking whatever was doled out, was entirely too long to lose himself. Zayn might have been playing a game, but Calum wasn’t about to be caught up in it.

“What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” demanded Calum. “When I left you, I never looked back. What the hell makes you think you can just waltz back into my life and think I’m going to just let you? You’re a bully, plain and simple, and I don’t like you, so why don’t you just stay the hell away from me? You have nothing I want anymore.”

Then, because his heart was pounding like mad in his chest and an exuberant amount of adrenaline was pumping through his veins, Calum set off in a run. He wanted nothing more than to haul off and punch the smirk clean off Zayn’s face, but he too afraid to. He knew the force Zayn put behind his punches, and he had become intimately acquainted with the weight of Zayn’s body pining him to the ground. He knew he didn’t stand a chance. He didn’t back then, and he didn’t today, either. Running was the only way to avoid the almost certain scenario that would end up with Calum bruised, broken, and bleeding.

So Calum ran on. He didn’t once look back.


	12. An Unfair World

Monday morning finally dawned after what seemed to Calum to be the longest weekend in the history of forever. He woke before his alarm went off with a crick in his neck. His left arm was tingling numb. Next to him, Michael was curled up in a ball, sleeping the morning away.

Michael and Calum had spent the latter half of the weekend television marathoning their worries away. It felt nice to be just the two of them. It reminded Calum of when they were back in high school and only had each other. Now, years later, their circle of friends was large enough to be considered a circle and not a straight line. They didn’t have as much alone time as they used to. Ashton was always around these days, not that Calum minded. Ashton fit seamlessly into the tiny world Calum and Michael had built together as outcast teenagers.

Ashton hadn’t stopped by Saturday night after work. He hadn’t come by on Sunday, either. Calum couldn’t remember the last time Michael had gone this long without seeing Ashton. Michael, for his part, was mum on the subject of Ashton. He refused to talk about what had happened Saturday morning, about how he had, for possibly the first time ever, run away from Ashton—or rather about how Ashton had scared Michael away. Calum tried to approach the subject once or twice, but Michael frowned so deeply that Calum’s heart clenched in his chest. He dropped the topic of Ashton all together.

Calum mentioned bumping into Zayn on his run. If anybody in the entire world deserved to know such information, it was Michael, the man who literally saved Calum’s life from the clutches of that monster. As Calum expected, Michael offered to cuddle the day away, and so Calum had. In Michael’s arms—in the arms of Calum’s best friend forever—Zayn couldn’t reach him. In Michael’s arms, Calum felt safe in a way he hadn’t since he ran into Zayn outside of the university’s gymnasium.

Though Michael wouldn’t talk about whatever it was that had happened with Ashton, Calum was pretty sure Michael needed to cuddle with his best friend, too.

They wasted away the rest of the weekend together. Michael kindly didn’t comment on Calum needing to check that the front door was locked every time he went into the kitchen or that Calum needed to sleep on the edge of the bed so that he wasn’t trapped next to the wall. Calum, in turn, pretended like he didn’t notice when Michael grabbed an extra plate for dinner out of habit. Calum also didn’t ask why Michael couldn’t sleep alone. He already knew the answer. Michael was so used to falling asleep next to Ashton that he couldn’t imagine lying all alone in an empty room.

Calum lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling with the first rays of the morning sun peaking in through the gap in the curtains. He took a moment to himself to appreciate how therapeutic having a best friend like Michael actually was. Michael had been there to mend every heartbreak Calum has ever had—from Jamie Carson when they were thirteen to Zayn to, now, Luke. It wasn’t fair, how much awful luck Calum had had with his heart. He understood again why he had vowed to never let himself fall for another person after Zayn had torn him down. If Calum’s heart had ached in the weeks following the devastating end to his relationship with Zayn, the pain was nothing compared to what Calum felt now, knowing that his love for Luke was unrequited.

The worst part was that Calum had lost Luke before he had even gotten him. It wasn’t fair, of course, to stake a claim on someone he had no right to, but Calum had thought Luke was interested in him, too. Ashton and Michael were similarly fooled. It didn’t make sense how two people could click as well as Calum and Luke had but weren’t meant to be together.

Fifteen minutes later, Calum dragged himself out of bed with a heavy heart. He tried to be as quiet as he could. Michael liked his sleep, and Calum didn’t want to wake him, not after Michael had been Calum’s rock since the fallout from the Halloween party.

Calum slipped into the shower. He went through the motions of washing himself on autopilot. His mind was full of contradictions like how Calum could have sworn Luke kissed him back for the slightest second before he pushed Calum away or how the words, “I can’t,” seemed to hurt Luke as much to say as they had Calum to hear. Calum shouldn’t let his mind wander. He shouldn’t build up fantasies in his head. He owed it to Luke to respect Luke’s relationship, no matter how much he wanted to pretend like his own love wasn’t unrequited after all.

When Calum emerged from the bathroom and returned to his bedroom, Michael was already gone. It was only to be expected. Both of them needed to be out of the door in only a short amount of time. Calum could hear Michael banging around in his bedroom next door, probably running into everything as he dressed himself half-asleep.

Calum changed into the first set of clean clothes he grabbed, satisfied that they matched well enough. He did up the laces to his shoes, threw a beanie on top of his head, and headed for the kitchen. He needed coffee if he was going to survive this morning. Michael probably did, too.

In the kitchen, Calum perked a pot of coffee. He got down two thermoses from the top cabinet and readied them on the counter in front of the coffee pot. Then he went about scrounging up something quick for breakfast. Their pantry left much to be desired, but there was a partially full box of breakfast pastries hidden in the back corner. The expiration date was set two months from now. Calum counted it as a win. He opened one of the packages and popped the two pastries into the toaster. Michael always liked his warmed.

Michael appeared out of his bedroom ten minutes later. By that time, Calum had fixed both thermoses of coffee to their individual likings and had wrapped Michael’s warmed pastries in a paper towel. He handed Michael his breakfast then grabbed his book bag from the living room. Michael thanked him for the kindness, and, after Calum grabbed his own to-go meal, they left the apartment together.

As soon as Calum fired up the engine, Michael reached for the radio dial and turned it to his favorite station, the only station in the area that didn’t cover the news at this time of a morning. Calum didn’t mind the noise. Between the two of them scarfing down their breakfasts, there wasn’t much room for idle conversation.

Calum parked in his usual lot on campus. He cut the ignition and pocketed the keys. He and Michael climbed out of the car. He hit the lock button before he shut his door. Michael rounded the front of the vehicle. Together, they headed for the stairs at the end of the parking lot.

“I’ve got a shift after I get done with class,” said Calum, apologetically.

Michael shrugged.

“It’s okay. I’ll find Liam or take the bus. Don’t worry about me.”

Calum noticed that Ashton wasn’t an option. He winced. Ashton used to be the first option, but since neither Ashton nor Michael had attempted to patch things up after their argument Saturday morning, Ashton obviously wasn’t an option. Michael had his pride. More than that, he had his insecurities. He wasn’t going to go to Ashton unless Ashton came to him first.

“If you can’t arrange anything, let me know, and I’ll try to drive you home before I go to work,” offered Calum.

He felt bad enough that Michael was afraid to drive. That was sort of Calum’s fault. If Calum hadn’t left his research plan setting on the coffee table that morning, Michael wouldn’t have been on the road at the right time for a teenager distracted by his cell phone to speed through a red light and t-bone Michael’s car. The least Calum could do was make sure Michael had adequate transportation until Michael was brave enough to drive again.

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something,” said Michael, but Calum could hear the gratitude in his voice. “I need to head to the library real quick before class. I’ll see you tonight.”

So Michael and Calum parted ways. Calum walked toward the English building where his first class was held. Michael headed the other direction. It was a chilly November morning. Calum’s jacket did little to protect him from the breeze that cut through the air. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, ducked his head against the wind, and almost jogged the rest of the way to the warm building.

Classes stretched on. Mondays were always the worst for that, with Fridays being a close second. With an eight-hour shift at work that afternoon, time dragged on. Calum did well for the first couple of classes, but he forgot to do the reading assignment for his last one, and the professor called on him to share his thoughts on the assignment. Calum didn’t even know enough about the material to even fake an answer, so it was a lost cause from the very start. He spent the rest of class feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. His professor’s snide remarks didn’t make him feel any better.

When the lunch hour hit, Calum swung by the cafeteria for a quick sandwich. He had them wrap it, so he could eat it on the go. He grabbed a small bag of potato chips and a to-go cup full of water. Michael hadn’t texted him saying that he needed a ride back to the apartment, so Calum hurried to his car. His shift would start soon.

Calum stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted somebody leaning up against the hood of his car. Immediately, he recognized Luke, who wore a thin jacket that couldn’t have done much to keep him warm in the icy arm. Calum felt a split second urge to bundle Luke up in his own jacket, but he quickly squashed it. His heart skipped an aching beat in his chest. It was not his place to ensure Luke’s health. The rejection Friday night had made that plainly obvious.

“Hi,” greeted Luke, unsurely, as Calum shuffled closer. It would be rude to gawk at Luke from across the parking lot. “Can we talk? I feel like I need to clear up a few things.”

Calum’s instinctive response was _there’s nothing to clear up_ , but the words died on his tongue. He was curious as to what Luke might have to say, even though he was almost certain it might stand to destroy what was left of his battered heart. He owed it to Luke to be a good friend.

Just because Calum had to go and fall in love with Luke didn’t make Luke a bad person. It only opened Calum up to the hurt that he had been feeling since Halloween, which Calum’s fault and not Luke’s. As painful as it was to hear Luke reject him, it was nothing bad on Luke’s part. There is nothing wrong with being in love, even when the person Luke is in love with isn’t Calum.

“When you kissed me the other night, it wasn’t—it wasn’t _unwelcomed_ ,” said Luke said, hurriedly as if he were trying to get everything out before he lost his nerve. His cheeks were flushed pink. Calum thought it may have been more than just the iciness of the air that brought the color to them. “You have to understand that, but it’s not fair of me to lead you on when I can’t do anything in response.”

He paused, staring imploringly at Calum as if he were his lifeline. Calum’s heart pounded like a kick drum in his chest. It throbbed with white hot pain, and Calum wasn’t really sure what hurt more—the fact that Luke wanted to kiss Calum back but couldn’t or the fact that wanting to kiss Calum didn’t make Luke change his mind about his mysterious relationship.

“D’you—d’you think we can still be friends?” asked Luke, after almost an entire minute of silence passed between them. His eyes were wide and hopeful, but Calum could see the glint of fear shining in them.

“Of course,” answered Calum, without hesitation. That was a question he needed to think about. He smiled warmly at Luke, even as his own heart ached with so much pain that it hurt to breathe. Luke wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t want to be with him, and that stung hot like Luke’s rejection had on that rooftop. But that was Calum’s problem, not Luke’s, and Calum would much rather have Luke as a friend than not have him at all. “You didn’t even have to ask, you know. You’re my best friend.”

Luke grinned, relief falling off his shoulders. It was so contagious that Calum, too, had to grin. Luke’s rejection still stung when Calum thought of that moment on the rooftop, but Calum’s heart bore half of its previous weight. It seemed like a much needed first step to getting over his crush on Luke. For that, Calum was glad.

“I don’t mean to run, but I was on my way to work,” said Calum, apologetically.

He really wished he could spend more time with Luke. After avoiding him all weekend, Calum missed Luke greatly. But Calum had rent to make and bills to pay, and Michael’s scholarship money only went so far.

Luke waved Calum off, one hand buried deep within the pocket of his light jacket. The grin faded from his lips. Calum liked to think it was because they were parting ways, but he quickly quashed that thought. If he and Luke were going to be friends and nothing more, Calum needed to stop fantasizing about Luke.

“I’m supposed to meet someone in a few minutes anyway,” said Luke. “I’ll catch you later?”

“Someone as in your boyfriend?”

The question slipped out of Calum’s mouth before he could stop it. He winced. Jealousy boiled in his stomach. He beat it back. It wasn’t fair of him to get be territorial of Luke when it wasn’t his place to do so. Luke was only a friend to Calum, and Calum shouldn’t treat him as anything more.

“Sorry,” said Calum, ducking his head. “None of my business. I’ll see you later. Tomorrow at the pizza place?”

“It’s a date,” said Luke, and then it was his turn to wince.

Calum laughed. It wasn’t funny how his heart fluttered at Luke’s flippant response, but he laughed anyway, because he was facing a hopeless uphill battle in his crusade to get over his crush on Luke. If Calum didn’t laugh, he would have to frown, and that would make Luke even more uncomfortable.

“Sorry, not a _date_ -date,” said Luke, rushing to correct himself. His cheeks were flaming red, an entire three shades darker than they had been a few seconds ago. “Lunch at the pizza place tomorrow sounds like a good opportunity to catch up between friends, right?”

“Yeah,” said Calum, still laughing a little, because his heart ached. “I’ll see you then.”

Calum left without much more fanfare, fearful that either he or Luke would say something else that would make things even more awkward then they had thus far managed. Calum climbed into his car and buckled up and refused to look at Luke. He couldn’t let himself carry on as if he had any hope of ever dating Luke, not if he wanted to remain friends with Luke without feeling the red-hot ache of rejection every single moment, so he couldn’t look.

But right before Calum backed out of his spot, he indulged a quick glimpse of Luke through the windshield. Luke was still standing in the spot Calum had left him, on the sidewalk in front of the parking space. He waved at Calum, and Calum waved back.

As Calum drove away, he saw a tall, dark headed man descending the concrete stairs to the parking lot. It was too far away to properly identify the man, who had a black scarf twisted around his neck that ended halfway up his face. It was almost too far away for Calum to notice the way the man headed straight for Luke, but Calum’s heartsick eyes wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

Calum wanted to circle the parking lot to get a better look at this mysterious man who was lucky enough to have captured Luke’s precious heart. He didn’t. When Luke was ready to introduce Calum to his partner, he would. Until then, Calum would keep a respectable distance—both out of respect to Luke and to protect Calum from a renewed sense of loss upon being reminded that Luke wasn’t, and couldn’t be, his.

So Calum turned right on the street instead and headed to work and ate his lunch on the go.

He got to work precisely two minutes before he needed to clock in. He parked haphazardly in the employee section then all but ran into the store. He didn’t need to be docked for being late, not that Josh would really do anything more than override the system and threaten to never help Calum out again—which would be like the sixth or seventh time Josh had made that threat since Calum started working here. Still, Calum didn’t care to give Josh more work or else Josh might do something equally horrible to him and make him follow Harry around with a cart for the entirety of the shift. Josh had used that threat on him last week, and Calum was almost too afraid Josh really would carry through on this one. It was altogether better not to test Josh.

Inside, Calum called out a greeting to Josh, who was tied up at the cash register with a big beefy man buying a counter full of basketballs. Calum headed straight to the back room where he could clock in. Harry was already there, sorting through boxes of inventory storage.

“So you and your Merry Men have recovered from Josh’s party all right, have you?” greeted Harry, grinning at him over a stack of boxes containing running shoes.

Calum sighed. He finished clocking in before he let himself be corralled into a work-required conversation with Harry. Apparently, Josh liked it when Calum tried to be friendly with Harry. Calum didn’t mind Harry nearly as much as he had in the beginning, but they were far from being best friends.

“I wasn’t Robin Hood, so I didn’t have any Merry Men,” said Calum, rolling his eyes. He couldn’t believe it was three days past Halloween, and he was still explaining his costume. He walked over to the work binder to see what needed to be done. “But, yeah, I recovered well enough, I suppose. Spent most of the weekend watching movies with Michael.”

“You know, I didn’t realize you knew Luke,” said Harry. “Such a small world.”

Calum’s heart clenched at Luke’s name. He thought about the chill of the rooftop and about the way his whole world had stopped with two little words. He quickly recovered. Harry didn’t know about Calum’s unfortunate rejection. He probably only knew about Luke, because Calum had left Harry in his wake as Luke chased after him.

“Sure is,” said Calum. “How d’you know Luke?”

He was proud that he managed a relatively normal voice, but it was probably because he was only halfway paying attention to his conversation with Harry. Josh had put Calum in charge of tearing down the Halloween section of the store and replacing it with Christmas item. Calum frowned. It was such a monumental task that he wasn’t even sure he could finish it in one shift. Following Harry around with a cart almost sounded like a less daunting task.

“Through some friends,” shrugged Harry.

There was a lull in the conversation. Calum didn’t care to fill it. He needed to head out to the floor and start on the monster task that was the Halloween section. He could gossip about the friends he and Harry had in common later. It wasn’t all that out of the ordinary, anyway. Harry was best friends with Liam, and he was friends with Zayn, and he knew Michael and Ashton through the grapevine.

Calum dragged a cart from the back of the storage room, intent to begin his task. He had to maneuver around Harry’s stack of boxes and accidentally got a red shoe caught in one of the wheels. Harry bent down to help him out, untangling the laces from the wheel until it was free.

“Can I ask you something?” proposed Harry, standing back up. He tossed the problematic shoe behind him, where it landed amongst a pile of broken down boxes and plastic. “And you don’t have to answer this, but, uh, back when you and Zayn were dating, were the rumors true? About, uh, how he treated you?”

Calum’s heart stopped beating. His jaw dropped. He froze. A wave of horror crashed over him. He couldn’t believe he was being confronted with his worst memories right here in the middle of the backroom at the store. Harry winced, apologetically. Calum’s reaction was enough of an answer to his question.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” said Harry, and, no, he shouldn’t have. Not here. Not now. Probably not even ever. “It wasn’t any of my business, but, uh, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, about why I’m even friends with Zayn, and, well, I don’t have a good answer for that, but I needed to know for sure, ‘cause, well, you know…”

Calum stared at him blankly, his entire body still frozen in his horror. He wasn’t sure he did know what Harry was getting at. Harry was known for talking in circles—it was one of the reasons Calum had disliked him so much in the beginning—but Calum had gotten better at following Harry’s winding tales until now, apparently, when the slightest mention of his awful past with Zayn came back to haunt him.

“You’re doing a good thing with Luke,” said Harry, changing the subject instead of explaining what he meant. Perhaps he sensed Calum’s anxiety of the reminder of his tumultuous history with Zayn. “You’re probably the best person for him, if we’re being honest. You shouldn’t give up—I mean, not that I have to tell you that.”

“We’re just friends,” said Calum, but he wasn’t sure that was what Harry was looking for. He didn’t want to stick around to find out. He had to get away from the reminder of Zayn and the living nightmares Harry had resurrected by his curiosity. Calum pushed the cart through the door to the store and continued speaking over his shoulder. “If you didn’t spend twenty minutes telling a five minute story, you and I might be, too. But, uh, thank you for your weird blessing, yeah? I need to go break down the Halloween section.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come be my friend on [tumblr](http://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/)! Occasionally, I talk about this fic. :)
> 
> The individual tag for this fic on my tumblr is found [here](http://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/tagged/Love-is-not-a-Victory-March).


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